Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Animation & Audio Game Audio Commentary Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Behind The Scenes Deleted Scenes Storyboards Music Video
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	86:11
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (71:33)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Phil Lord Chris Miller
Studio Distributor	Sony Animation Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Bill Hader Anna Faris James Caan Andy Samberg Bruce Campbell Mr. T Bobb'e J. Thompson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Mark Mothersbaugh Mary Hidalgo Justin Thompson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Catalan Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Spanish English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

'That spaghetti twister was like an amuse bouche compared what's about to hit us!'

    The big budget, highly successful children's animated blockbusters just keep on coming. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of the best in recent years, being highly amusing, sweet, highly entertaining and a wonderful technical achievement. It also features a nicely done father/son relationship subplot which makes the film poignant as well as entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed this film at the cinema in 3D and enjoyed it again on this DVD, which does not feature 3D, in the last few days. The only thing this film is really missing is perhaps the emotional depth of the best of Pixar's output such as Up or Wall-E.

    The story is based on a children's book of the same name and tells the story of Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) a young man who lives on an island in the Atlantic called Swallow Falls. The town has always survived on sardine fishing but recently the sardine cannery has closed down leaving the people to eat the sardines. Flint lives with his father Tim (James Caan) and has been inventing things since he was very young, assisted by his pet monkey, Steve (Neil Patrick Harris). His late mother always supported him but his father thinks it is high time that he gave up inventing and joined him to run his sardine fishing tackle shop. His inventions have never been overly successful but now he has developed a machine which he thinks will turn water into food. While trying it out he finds that he needs more power than he can get in his home laboratory. He hooks it up to the town's main power grid but unfortunately it is during the Mayor's attempt to relaunch the town as a tourist destination. Of course, it is a disaster and his machine shoots off into the sky, becoming lodged in a cloud bank. It looks like Flint must face the fact that he is a failure until it begins to rain hamburgers. Will he be able to connect with his father, get the girl, weather reporter Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), and ultimately save the world from the violent food weather he unleashes?

    Besides those I have already mentioned there are many great characters in this film especially the town policeman, Earl (hilariously voiced by Mr T), Manny, Sam Sparks' cameraman and Baby Brent, the former child star of an advertising campaign for the sardines. Earl, Steve the Monkey and Tim (and the interaction between Steve and Tim) are absolute highlights in the supporting cast of great characters. There are also some recurring 'ratbirds' which are highly amusing. There are lots of witty lines (like the one above) and fun sight gags. Visually, the animation is a treat with a style of its own and spectacular use of colour, showing the changing moods of the film. The realisation of the food is fantastic, very realistic in the way it moved and landed. The film was written and directed by two up and coming talents Christopher Miller and Phil Lord.

    Basically, this film is a winner for kids and parents alike. Enjoy!

Video

    The feature is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced widescreen. This is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was very clear and sharp throughout with only some very minor MPEG artefacts during pans and fast motion.

    The colour was spectacular, showing off the wonderful colour design of the film.

    There were no other obvious artefacts.

    There are subtitles in English, Spanish, English for the Hearing Impaired and for the commentary in both English & Spanish. They are white, clear and easy to read.

    There layer change occurs at 71:33 and is unfortunately quite noticeable.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is excellent.

    This DVD contains five audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448Kb/s , a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384Kb/s, a Catalan Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384Kb/s, an English Audio Descriptive Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384Kb/s and an English commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout.

    The music by Mark Mothersbaugh is very fitting and includes some orchestral/instrumental sections along with a few catchy pop songs.

    The surround speakers were in constant use during the storms and action sequences along with various specific directional effects and lots of atmosphere.

    The subwoofer was also very well used during storms and action sequences.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is impressive with lots of colour and movement, music and a nice food based cursor motif.

Flint's Food Fight Game  

    One of the better games I have seen on a DVD (considering the restrictions of the format). You need to pilot the flying car into the storm avoiding various food items.

Commentary - Writer/Directors Christopher Miller & Phil Lord with Actor Bill Hader 

    Despite being quite self congratulatory of everyone involved, this commentary is also quite entertaining and includes interesting anecdotes, discussion of where the ideas came from, pointing out details of the design and discussion of casting decisions. Worthwhile.

A Recipe for Success - The Making of (10:26) 

    This featurette contains some reasonably interesting info but is spoiled by a juvenile and stupid approach involving the writer directors putting mince meat inside a book. Dumb.

Key Ingredients : The Voices of (12:10) 

    Obligatory voice cast featurette is decent but overlong.

Extended Scenes (2:27) 

    Good stuff here, two longer versions of scenes in the film, both containing some good jokes.

Early Development Scenes (5:20) 

    Storyboard versions of two extra scenes including a longer intro to Flint and more spaghetti twister material. More for animation buffs.

Progression Reels (7:23) 

    The most technical of the extras goes into the various colour schemes, how various shots were put together and how things like the clouds and lighting were done. Introduced by the Visual Effects Supervisor.

Miranda Cosgrove's 'Raining Sunshine'

Sing-a-long (3:49) 

    Sing-a-long version of the music video with your choice through multi-angles of four different food based bouncing balls to follow the words.

Music Video (3:48) 

    Music Video of the boppy end titles song.

Behind the Scenes (2:17) 

    A making of featurette for the music video!

Other Trailers

    There are two Region 1 editions of this film, a one disc bare bones edition which includes the film in two aspect ratios and the other a 2-Disc Super-sized edition which basically replicates what we get on one disc here (only with a 1.78:1 cropped version in addition to the correct ratio of 2.35:1). My view is that a cropped 1.78:1 edition is useless so there is nothing wrong with the local edition. This film is also available on Blu-ray both here and in the US.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    Lots of extras which vary in quality.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall