Cloudy With a
Chance of Meatballs

Let me get this straight. Meatballs, steaks, spaghetti, ice cream and candy are falling from the sky and someone thinks this is a problem? Add Sports Illustrated swimsuit models falling from the sky and you just described my version of heaven (No, they would not suffer crash landings. They would be like angels floating down from the clouds).

In this animated film (best seen in 3-D if you get a chance and want to spend the extra couple of bucks), Bill Hader provides the voice of Flint Lockwood - a young man who wants to be the next Alexander Graham Bell or Nikola Tesla, but his inventions are as effective as Carrot Top's rejected comedic props.

After his small island town sees the failure of its sardine packaging plant, which leaves them on the verge of extinction and stuck with all of the leftover sardines, Flint invents a machine to turn water into food (water into wine has been done before), but must hook it into the town's electrical plant to make the contraption work. Of course, Flint trespasses onto the electric plant grounds, plugs into the power supply, and everything goes awry as the machine shoots itself into the clouds. However, the result is a change in the island's weather patterns that makes El Nino look like a small summer cloudburst.

When it starts raining food, will Flint be a hero for delivering free, non-sardine food?

Can he help the mayor (Bruce Campbell) bring this fading island back to life as a tourist attraction?

Will the sweet and pretty weather lady (Anna Faris) see Flint is a lovable, sexy nerd instead of a troublemaking, great guy she doesn't like in that way and who she wants only as a friend?

Ladies and gentlemen, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is more than a great movie for kids and adults. It also serves as the comeback vehicle for Mr. T, and I pity the fool who doesn't embrace his return to the national consciousness.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a movie full of lovable goofiness kids and adults will appreciate, without either rolling their eyes. It has some funny stuff parents will pick up on, like the painful news anchor and reporter puns those characters foist on us like a restaurant trying to sell the daily special before it goes in the garbage bin that night, a mystifying Welcome to Mooseport joke for the hard core Ray Romano fans in the audience, the rare love story that avoids schmaltz and mawkishness, and the whole idea of a town trying to make a comeback with tourism (does every town in America with a failed industrial plant think tourism is the answer?). Writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (based on the book by Judi and Ron Barrett) even throw in a sweet story about Flint's relationship with his Mom (Lauren Graham) and Dad (James Caan).

However, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs also has a great deal of imagination and craziness for kids to revel in with a lovable goofiness that doesn't insult anyone's intelligence and rarely trespasses into crude territory (only 3 potty jokes according to my count, a shockingly low total for today's Hollywood). Meanwhile, the animation team provides wonderful visuals which keep us in the cartoon world with sights from our wildest dreams.

Before we wrap up the review, I must ask you to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs to help celebrate the legendary Mr. T. They might be making a new A-Team movie without him, but Mr. T puts in a performance as one of the warmest, loving fathers portrayed on screen this year. From showing us the adoration he has for his kid to earning laughs as his character goes all out to be the best police officer ever, even if he might be a bit overzealous, Mr. T is the surprise star of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

You and the kids don't get a chance to see many movies this good, so don't miss the opportunity, even if you don't have kids.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is rated PG for brief mild language.