Here is a recipe that will leave you full to the brim: 1.Get a large bowl of invention failures. 2. Add a special lab coat, a mother’s love, and a father’s distress. 3. Put in a dash of geeky love and an allergy to peanuts. 4. Mix in with a boring town consisting of an ever-hungry mayor, a sardine-dominated menu, and a wonderful food-creating machine gone wrong. 5. Cook for 81 minutes, or until the molecules mutate. Perfect! Now your Meatball Mayhem Surprise is ready!

Inspired by a wonderful children’s book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. describes the story Flint Lockwood, resident of boring Swallow Falls, and his struggles with his profession early in the movie. Through childhood, he goes through numerous failures, including permanent spray-on shoes, ratbirds, and a monkey thought translator. However, being the typical children’s movie that Meatballs is, Flint never gives up and strives for his goal.

Finally, after waiting for a success, I opened my eyes to see Flint invent a machine that could create any type of food. I was about to clap my hands at the movie’s end when perky weather intern Sam Sparks showed up on the scene and swept Flint off of his feet. She alternated between bursts of scientific statements and random awkwardness. They romantically frolic in a Jell-o mansion, complete with a Jell-o rendition of Michelangelo’s David. Suddenly the food-creating machine begins to malfunction and mutate, due to an overwhelming amount of orders, especially from the gluttonous mayor.

Sam, Flint, Flint’s pet monkey, and a certain advertising star by the name of Baby Brent, set off in the now working flying car to shut off the machine that was beginning to cover the whole world in gigantic food items. However, the machine is not in any ordinary building, but is in a giant meatball, that was spewing out spaghetti tornadoes, hurricanes, and killer pizza slices. As if all of these problems and disasters aren’t enough, the foursome encounter man-eating chickens and murderous gummy bears, which are apparently present to protect the now intelligent machine.

At the end of the movie, Flint triumphs against the machine using his permanent shoe spray and is safely brought down by ratbirds to the anxious people of ChewandSwallow (cleverly renamed by the increasingly gluttonous mayor), Sam secured a position as a weatherperson, and Flint’s father finally expresses his immense love and pride for his only son.

Though all ended well, the movie left a slightly bitter aftertaste that needed more than popcorn to wash down. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is definitely the perfect bedtime story for a scientifically-knowledgeable eight-year-old child, who enjoys enlarged food, sparkly rainbows, and a seemingly never ending string of sticky situations.

Rating: C+