Latest screening: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Fun! That really is the best word to describe Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.

This year has been a stunning year for animation. Coraline was dark, beautiful and exciting – showing the genius Henry Selick take stop-motion animation to a new level. Pixar’s Up was simply one of the best films of the year – hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure. After a shaky second film Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs delivered a really entertaining, enjoyable romp for all the family. Hell, even Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol wasn’t bad. I’m seeing maestro Miyazaki’s latest, Ponyo, this weekend. It really has been a strong year. But something Sony Pictures Animation’s Meatballs (as I’m reducing its title to from hereon in) provides is an unashamedly fun-for-kids movie.

Don’t get me wrong, adults can enjoy it to, but this one feels made for kids first. Up, like all Pixar films, felt made primarily for discerning adults. Coraline was too disturbing for little kids but easy for adults to love and admire. Ice Age worked great for kids but had a lot of adult humour. Meatballs combines a daft story with bigger-than-life characters, simple design and bright, almost day-glo colours to please every child everywhere. Giant food falling from the sky. A comic-relief monkey. A colour palette that even puts Up to shame. This screams “kids will love this” to me.

I kind of feel like the adult appeal here comes from the voice cast. It is headed by the likeable, but unusual, pairing of Bill Hader and Anna Faris. These are hardly names that immediately make you think “kids movie”, yet there child-like glee and enthusiasm – actually often seen in their live action characters, especially Faris’ – fit perfectly. But the real manner-from-heaven is in the support cast. How often do you get a combo the likes of James Caan, Bruce Campbell, Neil Patrick Harris, Benjamin Bratt and Mr T (yes, MR T!!!) in an animated movie support cast? This is such a brilliant support cast it can deliver Harris as a talking monkey with only a few words of (oft repeated) dialogue. Caan is brilliant. This may bizarrely be the best use of Caan since 1990’s Misery! Mr T is so spot on you can’t believe no-one’s used him this way before.

It is not a great film. It’s not Up, it’s not Coraline, no it’s not even Ice Age 3 but it is very entertaining. That the film can raise sustained and deserved laughs from a reunion that uses only names (most notably from the monkey) is impressive. The film will have you laughing from the get-go – from design elements like Caan’s character, to situational comedy, to one-liners – and almost all of it will work for kids, not going over their heads.

The concept does lose momentum in the middle act and the villain of the piece is not nearly maniacal enough. Plus there is at least one too many false ending.

However despite these flaws it’s a very worthy watch. Sony animated films (Monster House, Surf’s Up) frequently turn out to be little treats hidden behind slightly unappealing marketing and consistently warrant watching. Meatballs adds to this reputation. This one may not trouble the awards lists (at least not when animation categories only have 3 entries, although the Oscars and Globes do have 5 this year) but it does provide a fun 90 minutes of daft amusement. Time well spent in the kids movie world.