Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on DVD Movie Review

As mentioned a few days ago, Sony Pictures sent me a free DVD to watch and review - my daughter (11 years old) and I watched it last night and here is our own honest review and opinion of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs which comes out TODAY - January 5, 2010 - on DVD!

Here is a synopsis:  "When Flint Lockwood's (Bill Hader) latest contraption accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over.  Then, something amazing happens as delicious cheeseburgers start raining from the sky.  His machine actually works!  But when people greedily ask for more and more food, the machine starts to run amok, unleashing spaghetti tornadoes and giant meatballs that threaten the world!  Now it's up to Flint, with the help of weather girl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) and Steve, his talking monkey assistant, to find some way to shut down the machine before the world is covered in super-sized meatballs."

Here's a link to the trailer --> Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Trailer, and if you'd like to see some of Flint's crazy inventions, check out this clip here --> Flint's Inventions.

I have to honestly tell you, my daughter and I laughed out loud through this whole movie.  The plot was actually fairly simple, and it was nice to just sit back and enjoy the pure fun of this movie.  The animation is fantastic - I can't tell you how funny it was just to simply watch giant food crash to Earth!  Even the way the characters were drawn was so entertaining to watch - especially Flint's Dad - I just cracked up every time he came on screen!

The theme of the movie is basically, "believe in yourself" and "don't hide the real you - the real you is wonderful".

Here are a few questions I asked my daughter right after we watched the movie:

What did you think of the movie?
I thought it was awesome and funny and I was laughing almost through the whole thing!

What was your favorite part?
When the mayor got really fat, and I liked at the end how Baby Brandt became a chicken.  I also loved the end with the song by Miranda Cosgrove.
(She's the actress from iCarly on Nickelodeon.)

Do you think other kids would like this movie?
I think they would LOVE it!

The movie is rated PG, but I didn't have any issues with allowing my 11 year old see it, and I think it's fine for the younger set too - the things that make it PG are not "deal breakers" to me.  If you'd like to know in specific detail what in this movie might be objectionable to you, you can check it out here at Kids in Mind - my favorite website for previewing movies I'm considering letting my daughter see, that I haven't seen.

Both my daughter and I have read the book this is based on, and while it expands tremendously on the original story, it still feels true to the book, and was a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes of fun - absolutely entertaining to see the giant food calamities from the book come to life!  This is not only an excellent movie for a "family movie night", but now that we're heading toward the dead of winter, it would be a great thing to have on hand for one of those days where the kids are home from school for a "snow day" and they're complaining they're bored.  It is even a great gift idea if you paired it with the original book!

Also I want to mention some fun bonus items - there is a sweepstakes entry with some great prizes you can win including a trip here, and, would you believe there's even an iPhone app (here)??

The DVD comes out today, January 5th - my daughter and I highly recommend it!

The end.