Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (2009)

This will be a quick post. As Cloudy isn't really a disaster movie, but it did have one scene I felt was worth discussing here.

THE PLOT

Flint Lockwood is an inventor, has been his entire life. Most of his inventions have failed miserably (see: ratbirds). However, he finally comes up with a winner. A machine that turns water into food (he lives on an island that survives only on sardines). Of course, the machine eventually goes crazy, and it's Flint's job to destroy the one thing he's made that has truly ever worked.

THE DISASTER

In reality there's a 10 minutes scene that is a true send-up of all disaster movies. First off, Flint's machine sprouts a gigantic spaghetti tornado that begins destroying the entire island. As if a 200 foot tall tornado made of spaghetti wasn't bad enough... it begins throwing "Meateors" yes, gigantic meatball meteors begin pummeling houses and cars, and pretty much anything else around. No people though, since it is a kid's movie (although at my showing, kids were getting a bit scared at this time).

At this point, the true send up begins. A news reporter comes on screen, saying that this disaster is spreading to all the world's major monuments...followed by everything else. Because, disaster movies always like to take aim at those major monuments. Very clever nod to the genre I felt. Anyway, the next two scenes show Times Square getting decimated by giant bagels, and the Eiffel Tower getting skewered by a gigantic BLT sandwich. With a huge olive to top it off, of course.

As if a giant spaghetti tornado, meatball meteors, big bagels, and huge hoagies weren't enough. There's one more disaster. The city has built a dam to warehouse all the excess food that falls on the ground when Flint uses his machine. Well, of course, the dam bursts, and threatens what little is left of Chew and Swallow (formerly Swallow Falls). At this point, the residents all have to make makeshift boats, and escape from the island...lest they be engulfed in a tidal wave of bananas.

THE DAMAGE REPORT

A lot of stuff gets blowed up real good. Houses get flattened, cars get destroyed, you even see buildings in Times Square get turned into rubble. There's a lot of damage done in a very short amount of time. I will reiterate that the movie does get rather intense for a few minutes during this time. And there are scenes that may actually scare younger children.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I surprisingly enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It's not too dumb for adults, and the action scenes are quite good. If you haven't seen it in theaters yet, I would say go for it. 3D isn't necessary (I did see it in 3D, and it was nice, but didn't really add a ton to the experience).

Next time, I'm continuing with the tornado motif with a movie called... Tornado! Made the same year as Twister, this looks like a cheap cash-in except for one thing. Bruce Campbell is in it. So it has to be awesome. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Bruce is the mayor in Cloudy as well. So it has that going for it as well!

Until next time...