3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Picture: 4/5
3D-Ness: 4.5/5
Sound: 4/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Interactivity:0/5

Pork Chops Keep Fallin’ on My Head

Flint Lockwood has been obsessed with science and inventing since grade school. He lives on an isolated island that has long since lost its vitality when the sardine trade, its major industry, went under. But Flint has a plan that could change all that, with the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, or, as Flint puts it, FLD SM DFR (flid sim difur) for short. It turns water into food.

The invention accidentally rockets into the stratosphere, where it remains fixed over the island, soaking up the plentiful water from passing clouds. Soon hamburgers begin to fall from the sky, complete with all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame-seed bun. And that’s just the beginning. At first it’s manna—or at least Big Macs—from heaven, but things quickly spiral out of hand. The town’s ambitious mayor starts living large in more ways than one and turns the town into an all-you-can-eat cruise ship buffet.

The audience for this film will likely skew younger than either Coraline or Monsters vs Aliens, but all animation fans will enjoy Meatballs’ quirky humor and clever visuals. There aren’t many jump-out-at-you 3D effects, but the film doesn’t need them. There are burgers floating down from the sky, Flint’s amazingly detailed lab (with its Get Smart entry and Star Trek crossed with 2001 décor), the inside of a palace made from a giant mound of Jell-O (don’t ask), an action-packed final act featuring man-eating chickens and deadly peanut brittle, plus the usual Sony product placement that flashes by so quickly you might miss it the first time. By the end, your head will be swimming in 3D-enhanced pasta sauce.

There’s plenty of bass on the energetic soundtrack, but not always where you expect it. The mix is fun, with aggressive but clean-sounding action cues, particularly in that high-energy final act. The effects sound a little homogenized compared with Coraline’s open, translucent audio, but the total effect is enhanced by Mark Mothersbaugh’s outstanding and beautifully recorded score. Some may find it overly dramatic for the movie, but I didn’t. Its main theme, in particular, is majestic, expansive, and cinematic. It’s worthy of a serious epic—which this, of course, is not.

This is the only one of the four Blu-ray 3D titles here that’s currently available in wide release. Among the extras are sneak peeks for the upcoming Blu-ray 3D releases of Open Season and Monster House.