Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Inventor Flint Lockwood creates a machine that makes clouds rain food, enabling the down-and-out citizens of Chewandswallow to feed themselves. But when the falling food reaches gargantuan proportions, Flint must scramble to avert disaster. Can he regain control of the machine and put an end to the wild weather before the town is destroyed?

Mostly well-received as a fast-moving, imaginatively silly family film, though the gap between its strong critical majority and its more modest audience enthusiasm suggests it lands harder for certain viewers than others. Critics who liked it pointed to sharp sight gags and surprisingly warm relationship dynamics; those less convinced felt the escalating chaos of the second half tips from inventive into exhausting, and that the film is ultimately calibrated for a very specific, easily distracted young audience.