Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs came on the other night, so I recorded it, expecting to watch for a while then delete it. After several very disappointing recent animated movies, I figured this one would have similar fatal flaws of internal inconsistency, whiny repetition, or infuriating sap. Instead, I was impressed with how witty it all is. Visual puns by the bushelful, excellent voice work, internal consistency - by the loose standards of absurdist comedy, and a lot of heart.
Furthermore, I expected D to avoid it completely. After How to Train Your Dragon, which has so much unmotivated action, snotty hipster kids with California accents, and adult Vikings with Scots accents - no explanation, just to start the list of irritating problems. Finding Nemo was all about a nagging father and a whining kid, and fish with human society - but inconsistently applied. We shut that one off. Wall-E was all about two words, Wall-E and Eva, repeated ad nauseum. Why there is a movie shown with live human actors, but the humans in the movie are animated, just heads another list with the heading "But... that makes no sense!" A strong story can tolerate a few absurdities, a weak one can't take any.
Cloudy does give explanations for all it's leaps into fantasy, with a wink to us that we shouldn't look too hard at that, just get the joke and move on. I'm rather enamored that when one character has a stupendous allergic reaction, she is injected with an epi pen - which is right. Within a breath is back to normal - which isn't, but it's done with tongue firmly in cheek. The monkey with the voice translator usually just says his own name. Every joke is set up with a story, a preference for Jell-o, professional grade lab coat, clean up going into a "leftover dam," monkey with a thing for gummi bears, even spray on shoes, all are set-ups that later pay off. Not to mention the Ratbirds. Or that Mr. T. voices an actor with a bald strip in the middle of his head. You know, where a Mohawk would be...
D got caught up as well, and we wound up watching together. And not deleting it.
Now, if only we could get completely away from all the Mom's Dead trope in animation.
4 comments:
You have convinced me that I should give it a try. I hate to admit that I actually liked Finding Nemo, which I was dragged by kids to see in the movies. But if I had watched it at home I might have turned it off before the parts that amused me the most.
I also enjoyed Cloudy. Another one you may enjoy is 'Up'.
I loved the live-action intrusion in Wall-E, but it's possible that old video games have made me more predisposed to appreciate unexpectedly mixed media.
But I definitely agreed that modern CG animation is now just as formulaic as the old Disney/Don Bluth/etc. films.
And with the Japanese studios narrowing in on formulae of their own, Satoshi Kon sadly dead, Mamoru Oshii increasingly inconsistent and Sylvain Chomet taking years and years to make anything, I think good cartoons are just as much a sub-culture as ever.
(Random suggestion of a film I keep meaning to check out but haven't yet: The Secret of Kells.)
Anna,
Seeing anything with children who are awed by the images makes it a very different experience.
Phil,
I will give it a go.
Phil,
Our movie tastes overlap only a little, but I do respect yours. I always look up the ones you recommend.
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