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This 3-D creation aims to explain the lip-smacking weather systems that hovers over the mystical village of chewing and swallowing (which the film argues named Swallow Falls before dinner began to fall from the sky).

Sony’s first computer-animated effort, “Open Season” was only moderately profitable, and the movie ‘2008 sequel was released in only a few foreign markets, and went straight to DVD in North America. The second film, Surf’s Up, “despite a disappointing performance at the box office but received an Oscar nomination for best animated film. (Studio executives said the “Surf’s Up” was wounded by the public fatigue with a plethora of movies with penguins, which preceded it.)

Instead book tells Grandpa Henry is geeky Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader, “Superbad”) and doe-eyed Sam Sparks (Anna Faris, “observe and report”). Flint is a young inventor is determined to morph water for food, and Sam is the weather girl sent to cover the Swallow Falls’ unusual weather conditions.

For fear that the division operated for independence from the parent studio, Sony Pictures last year installed new management.

Bob Osher, Chief Operating Officer of Sony’s Columbia Pictures Motion Picture Group, was tapped to head digital studio production department, and Hannah Minghella, daughter of the late director Anthony Minghella, is responsible for the production of the animation unit. Osher replaced Yair Landau, who left after clashing with executives at Sony, and the two former DreamWorks executives he used to run the division, Penny Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabin. Tensions also arose between Sony’s visual effects unit, Image Works, and the animation division.

The mix 3-D images are also a disappointment. Meatballs are not rain on the audience, not donuts get rolling on the screen. The studio should not have bothered with the news that it would not give a definite take on the book.

Sony Pictures hopes to “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs” forecasts a sunny future for their animation operations.

Instead of a simple story about a magical place, and the penalty for having too much of a good thing, “Meatballs 3-D” inject a father-son relationship, in need of repair and a love story.

The film is mildy entertaining thanks to the fringe characters who accepts cop Earl Devereaux (Mr. T, “The A-Team”), and threatens the Mayor Shelbourne (Bruce Campbell, “Burn Notice”).
Nature is not bad either. The city is covered in ice and sherbet after a storm, and Flint create a castle made of Jell-O. It’s Candy Land come alive.

As a society patron saint of their newfound generosity, the aptly chosen song “Sunshine, lollipops and Rainbows” player, and Lesley Gore’s syrupy repetition is enough to put the audience in sugar coma.

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