This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

I loved, loved, loved this movie! Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is easily the best non-Pixar animated film to come out in our post-Pixar world.

After the sardine canning factory on a small New England island is forced to close its doors, the community falls on hard times. The only things people can afford to eat are sardines. Because sardines are “super gross,” amateur inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) decides to create something to help the town. The only problem is Flint doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to inventing things. He’s got more than enough passion and enthusiasm, but his experiments generally go from bad to worse.

Flint pins his hopes on an airborne device that turns water into food. This time it works like a charm! Hamburgers, pizza, pancakes and spaghetti rain from the sky. Suddenly Flint is a hero. But he may have bitten off more than he can chew. When the machine begins malfunctioning and creates a perfect food storm that threatens to destroy the whole world, Flint’s blessing quickly turns into a curse. Now he must team up with brainy weathergirl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) to stop his out-of-control invention at all costs.

The terrific Hader and Faris are backed up by a tremendous collection of supporting voice talent, including James Caan as Flint’s technophobe father who has a hard time expressing his love for his son and turns everything into a fishing metaphor, Bruce Campbell as the town’s scheming mayor, Mr. T as Earl the cop, and SNL’s Andy Samberg as a washed-up celebrity. Others include Neil Patrick Harris, Benjamin Bratt, Al Roker and Lauren Graham.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was loosely inspired by Ron and Judi Barrett’s beloved children’s book of the same name. If you are a fan of the book, you need to know that the movie has very little in common with its source material other than aerial food bombardments. If you go in untethered to your expectations you’ll probably discover that, while different, the film might just be on its way to becoming a classic too.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs operates on the principles of absurdity. Chicken men, sledding down hills of vanilla ice cream, houses made completely of Jello. The only guiding principle behind this movie seems to be the more nonsensical the better. And it pays off huge.

The film looks tremendous, with what can only be described as a Fantasia-esque use of vibrant, explosive color. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller prove extraordinarily adept at creating dramatic and exciting camera angles and they make full use of their 3-D palatte, taking every opportunity possible to wow their audience. They also parody disaster movies such as Independence Day and Armageddon with gleeful relish and end their film by spoofing the original Star Wars.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is not a deep or meaningful film (though there are some nice bits about being true to yourself and your dreams) and as such still cannot come close to competing with the Pixar magic machine. But Meatballs comes closer than any other animated film yet — Kung Fu Panda almost made it — to conjuring the worlds of unrelenting fun and dazzling beauty which, up till now, has been Pixar’s exclusive domain.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.