CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS - Sony Delivers a Great Animated Film

Apparently I'm one of about two people never to have read CLOUDY in book form. So I didn't know what to expect from the film.

SPOILERS RAINING DOWN LIKE GIANT PANCAKES

CLOUDY tells the story of Flint Lockwood, a wannabe inventor who can't ever seem to invent anything useful. While trying to invent a device that turns water into food, he accidentally launches it into the sky. Where it works. This attracts the attention from a cute wannabe weather intern-turned reporter, as well as the greedy mayor of the dying town. Flint becomes a hero and a bit stuck up, and the mayor repositions the town as an international tourist destination for its raining food. What Flint really wants is the respect of his misunderstanding fisherman father. Eventually, the machine mutates food to the point of self-awareness, and the world is about to be drowned under a foodstorm of epic proportions. Flint and a motley crew have to launch a sky-assault on the machine.

So -- how's the film stack up? Pretty darn good. The script, by directors Lord & Miller, is tight. There's enough character stuff to motivate all the action. There are fantastic gags with Flint's bum inventions, including ratbirds, a crazed TV with legs, and spray-on shoes, and the team behind the movie milks every last bit of humor and inventiveness out of raining food (from snowball fights with ice cream to a spaghetti twister).

There are a few weak points that stem from poor script choices. The TV producer/cameraman turns out to be a conveniently handy doctor/pilot/whatever. While this is played for jokes, it comes out of nowhere and takes away from the story a bit. And there are two instances in which Flint should fall to his death but doesn't, simply because the writers can't seem to come up with a good reason for him not to. In the first, he falls during the spaghetti twister, coming to rest on a series of parachutes/slides/whatever -- his labcoat opens like a parachute, then he catches an umbrella Mary Poppins-style, then he falls on some stuff, before finally climbing down a conveniently placed ladder to safety. Lord & Miller try to play it off for laughs, but it's really an instance of the script needing to show him doing something clever to save himself rather than lucking into it. Unfortunately, they repeat the same trick during the finale, in which Flynn falls out of the exploding food machine to his imminent death. Only for some reason, he's saved by a flock of ratbirds -- birds that up until now were nothing but a terrible nuisance.

These are relatively small flaws and don't detract from the otherwise tight plotting and solid character work. And the film looks great, with some truly impressive CG animation.

9 - Dance Ten, Looks Three (well, more like Looks Nine, Script Three)Shanek

Shane Acker's 9 came out, the story of ragdolls negotiating a post-Apocalyptic land and trying to avoid machine creatures bent on their destruction. The previews were amazing, full of incredible visuals. Sadly, the movie was all style no substance. No large surprise, being that it was produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmembatov.

9 OUT OF 10 SPOILERS BELOW

There's almost nothing to 9's script. It tells the story of ragdoll 9, who awakens in a post-Apocalytpic world. He finds others like himself, led by the fearful 1. Through some mistakes, 9 causes the capture of multiple other ragdolls and the reawakening of a giant evil machine. Eventually, he leads the ragdolls to overcome the machine.

Again, the visuals on the movie are awesome. The world is sufficiently disastrous and the residual iconography and flashbacks give a cool, retro-fascist vibe. The ragdolls move like real people and the monsters, all hybrids of ragdoll/bones/machinery are truly creepy.

Here's why the story doesn't really work.

1) It's far too simple. There's no subtlety or complexity. It's just a series of -- hey, we need to go here and do this. There aren't really even any complications. Just obstacles that are overcome.

2) The world doesn't make sense when you think about it. Why does a scientist imbue bits of his soul into ragdolls? And bits of his soul into the evil computer? Why not make more machines to fight the machine? Why do we care if the ragdolls survive? Do the bits of his soul ensure the survival of humanity? I'm not sure. All I know is at the end, some glowy soul-rain came down after the ragdoll-souls were released from the machine. That means what exactly?

Similarly, how do the ragdolls work? They don't have blood or bones. Yet they seem afraid of falling from heights. Why? Presumably they'd just smack into the ground and get up and be okay. The only thing that kills them is having their souls sucked out by the machine. So the rest of the sequences don't have much jeopardy to them because their "lives" aren't at stake.

3) 9 seems like an idiot. The whole movie pretty much revolves around him trying to undo the awakening of the great machine creature. Which for some reason he does. AFTER WITNESSING A MONSTER TRYING TO PUSH A SYMBOL INTO A DEVICE. This is perhaps the dumbest move of all time. In fact, after he does it, two of the other ragdolls ask him variations of "What were you thinking?" I don't know. Because it's a really stupid move. So trying to undo it doesn't seem heroic so much as a necessity, being that it was a move born of illogic/stupidity.

4) A lot of the tasks undertaken are far too easy. 9 and crew are able to trash the machine creature by using an old artillery piece (which is odd, since the machines were able to exterminate all of humanity, and humanity was incredibly well-armed) and getting the souls out of the machine just requires finding the symbol and pressing some buttons on it like a game of Simon. If that was the case, how did humanity lose the war in the first place?

Someday, someone will make an adult animated film that matches top-notch visuals with an incredible story. Well, someone who's not Japanese will make it. They've been doing those kinds of films for years.