Unless it says Pixar on it, I walk into animated films with arms crossed and a skeptical grin excited to tear whatever I'm about to watch several new assholes with my stunningly sharp verbiage. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a slightly different animal showing me some genuinely funny stuff in the trailer and then sweetening the pot with some hilarious clips dropped online in the final week before it's release. Plus, it's not a fucking buddy comedy about talking animals trying to escape precarious situations and that is always a plus. So with all these factors taking me off my snooty high horse, I went into Meatballs (or as I so lovingly have been calling it CWaCoM) my hopes were elevated to the point where I expected to not walk out of there hating it, but never did I expect to walk out with tented pants over how awesome it was.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the story of Flint Lockwood, a teenage inventor with possibly the best ideas and coolest name ever, trying to create one thing that will bring him fame and fortune and will ultimately better the world. The only problem is that his inventions, while sort of successful, usually yield less than satisfactory results. Spray on shoes that never come off, hair unbalder, and my personal favorite recurring character....RATBIRDS!! So when one of his inventions, a machine that turns water into food, works and starts raining burgers onto an island who's lived off of nothing but endless variations of sardines, which are super gross, the power, fame, and the adoration of the new weather girl start to cloud (see what I did there?) Flint's judgement.

This movie was straight up hilarious. Like laugh out loud, fall out of your chair, horrify the people sitting next to you with how demonic you look while youre laughing uncontrollably hilarious, and it totally came out of left field. Sure the trailers looked good, but it looked like a kids movie filled with kids jokes. Not the case at all. I mean, the kids jokes are there, but CWaCoM put me into stitches way more than once and every time I was able to calm myself down enough to start paying attention again something else would happen that would send me into fits.

The movie is chock full of fun and unique characters not the least hilarious of which is the local policeman played aggressively and energetically by none other than the muscle bound gold-chain toting Mr. T. If all he did was say "FLINT LOCKWOOD!" all the time I still would have laughed at every word he said. It doesn't hurt that he pretty much just yells all the time, and that shit is hilarious always. Each and every character brings their own brand of humor to the mix making for a non-stop laughfest which you'll probably walk away from having pissed your pants at least twice.

There were moments throughout the movie where I literally thought I was looking at clay models in a real life environment, that's how well CWaCoM is animated. When I got out I regretted not giving the 3D a shot because I really feel that it actually would have benefitted from it since I didn't notice any gimmicky garbage in the 2D version. Maybe I'll catch it again before it leaves theaters.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was like opening a birthday present from your grandmother and getting something awesome. You go in expecting it to be socks, and when you get that wrapping paper off you find a Sega Genesis. Best feeling ever. It's very light, super fun, and tells a really great story without kicking you in the nads with it's morals. Great animation, lovable characters, really effing funny.

5 Stars