Review: "Queen Bees"

“Queen Bees” is sort of a “Mean Girls” for the golden years set -- nice older woman moves into a retirement home ruled by a group of imperious gals, clashes with and then joins them, helps them chill out a bit and also finds a nicely creased fellah to get all moony with.

It’s pretty predictable stuff, and you can practically map out the entire plot beforehand with sure-handed accuracy. But it’s also genuinely warmhearted, has some solid funny moments and features an admirable cast of older performers.

If movies were a meal, this is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and buttered corn: familiar comfort food. It won’t wow anyone with originality, but if you like that sort of thing you’re sure to come away satisfied.

This movie, directed by Michael Lembeck from a screenplay by Donald Martin, is notable if for no other reason that it isn’t often you see an 88-year-old actress as the lead in a mainstream film. That would be the inimitable Ellen Burstyn, who plays Helen, a fairly recent widow who clings to her independence.

Her daughter, Laura (Elizabeth Mitchell), is pushing her to sell her home and move into the nearby Pine Grove community. Her loving grandson, Peter (Matthew Barnes), acts as the supportive middleman and peacemaker between them.

But when Helen, who has a tendency to lock herself out of her house, accidentally burns down her kitchen, she agrees to move into Pine Grove for a month while repairs are done.

She soon runs afoul of the titular group that has all the other seniors running -- OK, ambling -- away in fear. They rule the central table in the dining room, decide who is or isn’t in the bridge club, and do early morning exercises in the courtyard with military precision, complete with whistles to wake everyone up.

Jane Curtin plays Janet, the iron-fisted leader of the group who takes a special dislike to Helen. But when one of their bridge foursome dies, Sally (Loretta Divine) recruits her to be her partner. It seems that she and the other queen bee, Margot (Ann-Margret), have been bucking under Janet’s stern yoke, and see Helen as a means to shake things up.

I enjoyed the portrayal of elderly folks in a rather closed community, and the comparisons to high school society are apt. Because the women outnumber the men, romance tends to be a by-committee type of thing. For example, Margot is currently sharing the amorous affections of one randy stud played by Christopher Lloyd (not me, the talented one) with a few other women. Lloyd is clearly having fun in a humorous role, complete with a squirrel’s nest toupee, though he gets one terrific, brief dramatic scene.

The other piece of the puzzle is James Caan as Dan, who moves in shortly after Helen and quickly commences with pitching woo at her, inviting her to every event going on at the retirement home. Helen resists, but soon finds those tender feelings welling up inside just when she thought they were long gone.

Caan’s a little worse for wear these days, walking gingerly with a noticeable stoop. But his scenes with Burstyn still have plenty of magic, and when they gaze into each other’s wet eyes with a feeling of longing and joy… well, I defy you not to get a little misty yourself.

“Queen Bees” is a story about fitting in, taking chances and the need to love and feel loved -- all of which are vital at any age. 

Reeling Backward: "Thief" (1981)

"Thief" is about a man who will not bend. Frank is a professional who's very good at what he does, takes pride in it, and is very particular about the way he goes about his business. He does not cut corners. He plans everything out from beginning to end. He does not take orders from anyone.

The fact that Frank is a jewel thief as opposed to, say, an engineer is merely one key aspect of a character who is complex while also being quite simple.

By simple I don't mean that Frank, played by James Caan in perhaps his finest performance, is dull-witted or dense. He's actually quite cagey in a pugnacious, unschooled sort of way. Perhaps it would be better to say that Frank is defined by his singularity -- a particular set of skills and outlook that serve both to exalt and circumscribe him. Frank is the best there is, but is not capable of being other than what he is.

Every other smart criminal pays off the crooked cops to keep them off his back -- to "round off the corners," as they urge. Frank would rather take a beating, have his house bugged and be followed by teams of undercover police than give in.

When a high-level fence and connected boss named Leo (Robert Prosky) offers to take Frank under his wing, set up high-level scores and "make you a millionaire in four months," Frank stubbornly refuses to become his vassal, insisting on signing up for a single job and then calling it quits. Even when there appears to be mutual respect and affection growing between them -- Leo buys a baby boy for Frank when he and his wife cannot conceive -- Frank goes ballistic when Leo persists in stringing him along.

In a lot of ways "Thief" reminded me of a later film, "Drive," starring Ryan Gosling as a wheelman whose carefully ordered world goes awry when he breaks his own rules and strives for something beyond the perfection of his job. I find it hard to believe that director Nicolas Winding Refn's 2001 film wasn't heavily influenced by Michael Mann's earlier one.

They share a lot of similarities in terms of characterizations, sleek noir-ish visuals and an atypical soundscape -- which, in the case of "Thief," was the result of the work of Tangerine Dream, an electronica band that created a lot of arresting movie soundtracks during the 1980s.

It was the first film score by Tangerine Dream, in a movie that heralded many other firsts. It was Mann's first feature film after success on television. It was the debut screen role for Prosky, as well as Jim Belushi, who plays Frank's right-hand man, plus William Peterson and Dennis Farina, who have bit roles as a bouncer and gunman, respectively.

Though I wouldn't see "Thief" until years after "Drive," the kinship to Mann's work was apparent to me even then. I noted in my review that "Drive" seemed "stuck out of time."

"For at least the first 30 minutes, I was convinced the story was set in the 1980s. The plethora of vintage cars, an ’80s-ish soundtrack and the gold-on-white scorpion jacket worn by the main character seemed to spring forth from 'Miami Vice' crossed with 'Less Than Zero' ... It very much reminded me of the work of Michael Mann, whose visuals could overpower a bare-bones story."

(Mann, of course, also produced "Miami Vice," which generated a lot of interest in its day for the wardrobe and bling, but is now generating reconsideration as one of the best TV shows of the '80s.)

I also took note of both films' use of sudden, explicit violence amidst stories that are much more attuned to mood and character than exploitative action. Belushi gets seemingly his entire innards splatted against the side of a van by a shotgun blast, and Prosky enjoys a similarly gruesome demise.

In his debut outing as a director, Mann mostly constrains his visual stylization to servicing the story. His screenplay, adapted from a memoir by a real master thief employing the pen name of Frank Hohimer, uses the cliche of the skilled man performing "one last job" to explore Frank's interior journey.

After spending 11 years in prison, most of his adulthood, Frank has been out for four years and appears to be a success. He owns two businsesses -- the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, where he makes and takes calls, and Rocket  Motor Sales, a higher-end used car lot. He wears silk shirts and $800 suits, changes cars frequently but favors Cadillacs, and carries himself with the sort of innate swagger that intimidates others.

Frank thinks he's got it all mapped out -- he even carries around a pastiche of photos of everything he wants for the rest of his life: a mansion, cars, a wife, kids and the companionship of "Okla," a master thief he did time with and who is played by Willie Nelson. In perhaps the film's most glaring flaw, Okla is given little screen time, really just two scenes, and Nelson is so good in them it hints at all sorts of unrealized narrative possibilities. Frank gets Okla sprung from jail so he can die a free man, which he promptly does without a real sense of denouement.

Mann gets a little too caught up in the particulars of the big heist, a "burn job" in which Frank uses a long thermal lance to melt the face of an especially challenging vault. His camera also tends to linger a little too long on objects for their visual appeal rather than their narrative purpose -- but that's been a characteristic of his entire oeuvre.

This being Mann's freshman film outing, it's certainly imperfect. I found the ending of the movie a little too Wild West-y and incongruent with what came before. Also, Frank's relationship with his wife (Tuesday Weld) is rather flat, other than an outstanding first scene at a diner, which Caan has described as the favorite of his long career. In it he essentially lays out who he is, and tells a riveting story about nearly dying after being targeted for a gangbang by a prison crew of inmates and guards.

He learned, he says, to fear nothing by valuing nothing, including his own life. Only by being willing to let go of everything important to him was he able to survive -- an ethos he takes to extremes by brutally cutting all his strings before going after Leo. But that's Frank, recognizing that he's been fooling himself with a vision he cannot have without compromising his hard inner core.

Quibbles aside, "Thief" is a moody minor masterpiece, a probing character study that disguises itself as a heist flick.

Reeling Backward: "A Bridge Too Far" (1977)

Recently this column focused on "Theirs Is the Glory," a fairly unique film in which the actual participants of the failed Allied stratagem to end World War II by Christmas 1944, Operation Market Garden, returned to the site of the battles one year after the fact to recreate the action for a motion picture. The same military operation later became the basis for the 1977 feature film, "A Bridge Too Far."

In my essay on "Theirs Is the Glory," I mostly concentrated on the similarities between it and "Bridge," wondering if screenwriter William Goldman or author Cornelius Ryan, on whose book the latter film is based, were influenced by the earlier picture. That inspired me to go back to "A Bridge Too Far," and see how it has held up to my memory.

It only reinforced my opinion: "A Bridge Too Far" is one of the great WWII epics, and an incredible marriage of narrative structure, inspired direction, gritty performances and technical mastery from the support crew, particularly the musical score by John Addison (who himself served as a soldier in Market Garden).

Market Garden would remain a forgotten bit of history for 30 years until Cornelius Ryan wrote his book about the adventure, in which the Allies dropped 35,000 paratroopers behind enemy lines to capture a series of bridges. The plan was to have XXX Corp, the British armor column, punch up the road to connect the bridges, thus creating a hole directly into Germany.

Except, the Allies ignored evidence of a great deal of German resistance along the route, including an entire Panzer tank division near Arnhem, the last and most important of the bridges, since it spanned the Rhine River and the border into Germany itself. The British paratroopers, who were only supposed to have to hold the bridge for two days, gave up after nine, leaving behind 80% of their men as casualties or prisoners of war.

That's a lot of story to cram into a feature film, even a three-hour one, but Goldman's screenplay is an exercise in elegant structure. The story begins and ends with generals, both Allied and German, as they plan bold stratagems and then later try to pick up the pieces of where things went wrong. The middle section focuses on the lower ranks of soldiers, the dogfaces who actually have to carry out the fight their superiors dreamed up.

You've heard of "all-star casts," but this one is simply jaw-dropping. For the Brits: Anthony Hopkins, Dirk Bogarde, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Sean Connery. For the Germans: Hardy Krüger, Maximilian Schell, Wolfgang Preiss. For the Americans: Robert Redford, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, James Cann, Ryan O'Neal. Not to mention Liv Ullman and Laurience Olivier  as Dutch civilians. And Denholm Elliott and John Ratzenberger turning up in bit roles.

Redford, arguably the biggest movie star in the world at the time, doesn't even show up until after the two-hour mark. 

I found it interesting how the script is laid out into essentially four sections. The first is the planning of Operation Market Garden, in which British heads are swelled and the first seeds of doubt creep in. Frank Grimes has a terrific role as a nervous major who unsuccessfully points out the presence of tanks, and is sent on medical leave as a result. The second section is the actual drop, a beautiful and daunting ballet of parachutes -- more than 1,000 men jumped out of planes for the sequence -- and the Allies' initial success in taking their objectives. The third is what I call the "American vignettes," and the last act is when everything goes to hell.

The vignettes are a quick succession of three stories centered around American characters. Elliott Gould is up first in a semi-comedic bit about his regiment failing to take the first bridge before the Germans blow it up, necessitating the building of a claptrap "Bailey bridge" to get the tanks across -- but not before delaying them 36 hours. Gould is terrific and charismatic, chomping on a cigar and shouting jokes in between the orders. Addison's music goes into a jazzy, bouncy mode.

Then we get James Caan as a nearly monosyllabic sergeant who protects his young captain -- he doesn't put on his coat at first, so we think he's just a punk private or something -- even guaranteeing the officer that he won't die. He appears to fail in his mission, as the captain is left for dead after being shot in the head. But the sergeant carries the body in a jeep through enemy lines to a mobile Army hospital and, at gunpoint, forces the surgeon (a spot-on Arthur Hill) to examine the wounded lad, revealing that he's still alive. 

(This may sound like Hollywood bullshit, but other than the part about being chased in a jeep by German soldiers, it really happened.)

The last and most harrowing of the vignettes is Redford as the major tasked with crossing the Waal River and taking the bridge at Nijmegen. Due to logistical snafus, they had to make a daytime crossing in flimsy portable boats, the wind blew away their smoke cover, and the unit was cut to pieces. Watching Redford with his helmeted head tucked down, pulling his rifle butt through the water like an oar, all the while chanting "Hail Mary, full of grace..." remains one of my seminal cinematic moments. (Again, this really happened.)

Sean Connery also gets a mini-vignette of his own as Major General Roy Urquhart, commander of the British airborne division dropped near Arnhem, who gets cut off from his own command and has to hide out in a little Dutch enclave, dodging from house to house, during which time he is presumed dead.

Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, played by Dirk Bogarde, more or less acts as the heavy, playing the gung-ho Brit general who will not cancel the operation for any reason. Those who "rock the boat" are encouraged to clam up or suffer the consequences. 

At the end of the film Browning is depicted as duplicitously claiming to always have been skeptical about the operation -- "As you know I've always thought we tried to go a bridge too far" -- rather than an unreserved booster. In reality, Browning raised his doubts prior to the operation, and he and his family -- Bogarde actually served alongside Browning during the war -- were outraged at his villainous portrayal.

It being only three decades and a bit after the events depicted, many of the actors had an opportunity to talk with and even befriend the men they were playing. Edward Fox knew Lt. Gen. Brian Horrocks, commander of XXX Corp, prior to filming and later cited it as his favorite movie role. Michael Caine changed some of his dialogue after asking his counterpart how he would have issued orders, and the real Lt. Col. Johnny Frost had to explain to Anthony Hopkins that he would never have run too quickly between cover, because he had to show his men how contemptuous he was of enemy fire.

The production of "Bridge" is a Homeric story unto itself, and one others have already told better than I could -- notably by Goldman himself, who wrote a making-of book, "Story of a Bridge Too Far," and also included an entire chapter about it in his seminal showbiz tome, "Adventures in the Screenwriting Trade." 

(Extremely short version: Joseph E. Levine, a lifelong maverick producer, personally financed the film's $22 million budget -- about $86 million in today's dollars -- himself, then convinced some of the biggest global movie stars to participate by all accepting the same weekly pay rate. He recruited Richard Attenborough (him again) to direct, undertaking an incredible logistical and artistic challenge. Then as some of the amazing footage of the airdrops and battle scenes started to come back in, Levine showed the rushes to distributors who bid on the international distribution rights to the film. As a result, "Bridge" was already in the black before the first ticket was sold.)

The ultimate result was surprising, and not. Everywhere but the U.S. the film was a smash hit. Here, American and audiences and critics used to rousing pro-Allies depictions of the war collectively shrugged their shoulders at a massive production about a colossal military screw-up. Thus, "A Bridge Too Far" is barely known on these shores.

Their loss; "A Bridge Too Far" was perhaps the last of the great World War II epics.

Review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2"

I didn't much care for the first "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," and the sequel is no improvement. The characters are flat, the story is unimaginative, and the humor is aimed straight at the pre-kindergarten crowd. If it weren't for the terrific animation and amazing creature designs, it would have nothing to recommend.

For those who don't remember the last flick: never-do-well inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) invented a machine that could spontaneously produce food out of water. Of course, it went berserk and began raining down house-sized cheeseburgers and pizza on his island home town. Flint and a crew of unlikely pals eventually shut it down.

The sequel picks up right where we left off, with the folks celebrating even as their dwellings are uninhabitable. Cue the arrival of Chester V (Will Forte), Flint's childhood hero, a scientist who creates all sorts of neat stuff while exuding a sense of superior cool. He's the best thing about the movie, with his weird body that has the rubbery quality of a yoga master and the studied mannerisms of Steve Jobs.

Chester's company, LIVE Corp., is a not-at-all disguised spoof of Apple. They offer to relocate the people of the town while things are tidied up. Meanwhile, Flint is enticed with a job offer, including the potential to join the ranks of the Thinkonauts -- Chester's geek elite.

But, wouldn't you know, it turns out Flint's food machine is still cranking out exotic eats, so he's recruited to go back and set things right.

Joining him out a sense of camaraderie are meteorologist/girlfriend Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), grumpy beetle-browed dad (James Caan), bully-turned-doofus-sidekick Brent (Andy Samberg), doctor/videographer Manny (Benjamin Bratt), police officer/acrobat Earl (Terry Crews) and Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), Flint's monkey assistant. New to the crew is Barb (Kristen Schaal), Chester's pushy orangutan assistant.

Things get interesting when they arrive on the island, where it turns out the food is not only still getting cranked out, it's actually taken on sentient animal form. So Flint and friends are chased by a cheeseburger spider (much scarier than it sounds) and buddy up with a walking, talking strawberry.

I just loved the huge menagerie of critters the filmmakers came up with -- it's a real feast for the eyes. There are hippos that resemble potatoes, leek brontosaurus, a taco tyrannosaur, "shrimpanzees," and a whole lot more.

I just wish co-directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn, and screenwriters John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein and Erica Rivinoja, could've come up with a story and characters to match the excellent visuals. The people struggle to qualify as one-dimensional, since they each have exactly one defining characteristic.

As for the 3-D, I would advise you to skip the upcharge -- the special effects really aren't special enough that you need to see them splayed out across your field of vision.

My almost-3-year-old seemed reasonably engaged throughout the movie, but rarely laughed out loud or started chattering or clapping excitedly. "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2" is competent, nice-looking entertainment for little ones that will soon be forgotten, and deserves to be.

Reeling Backward: "Brian's Song" (1971)

We're going back to television! In writing last week's column on "Too Young a Hero," I was looking over the filmography of director Buzz Kulik and saw that among his credits is one of the most iconic television movies ever, "Brian's Song," which also gets mentioned as among the best sports flicks, too. It's universally regarded as the one movie that can get grown men to weeping.

The TV drama was so successful, in fact, that according to its Wikipedia page it actually enjoyed a theatrical run after its broadcast -- a feat I've never heard of another show replicating.

"Brian's Song" had become one of those objects that I knew more through its pop culture reputation than any first-hand experience with it. So I decided to extend my foray into TV movies for one more week.

I was mildly disappointed in "Brian's Song." Its production values and dialogue, while certainly good by the standards of 1971 television, have not held up well with the years. Seen in modern lights, the movie has an undeniable hammy tinge. And at 74 minutes minus commercials, the story of the friendship between two professional football players feels short-shrifted and hurried.

The teleplay by William Blinn is much overpraised, in my humble opinion, despite its Emmy and Peabody award wins. It follows a pretty standard and predictable three-act format: the meeting and initial rivalry between Chicago Bears running backs Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo; their deepening friendship as emnity gives way to comradely affection; and Piccolo's diagnosis and death from a rare form of cancer.

I'd use the term "television movie-of-the-week" as a put-down to describe the material, except that's exactly what "Brian's Song" is.

What saves the movie is the tremendous acting, with all due credit to Kulik's direction. It helped that the three main roles were all helmed by big-screen veterans: James Caan as Piccolo, Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and Jack Warden as crusty coach George Halas. Even the supporting parts, including the men's wives and fellow players, feel solidly rooted and authentic.

Caan had a corner on insouciant charm, and milks it for everything it's worth with his twinkly smile and easygoing grace. Williams has the harder role as the more internal Sayers, a man who had to be coaxed into uttering more than a few words in a row, and uses his facial expression and mannerisms to convey his character's almost timid reserve.

I feel compelled to point out that Caan and Williams were in their early- and mid-30s, respectively, when the movie was made, playing men who age from 22 to 26 -- the latter being when Piccolo tragically passed away.

What's notable is that Kulik and Blinn don't go for big, maudlin sentimental moments. The relationship between Sayers and Piccolo is kept distinctly masculine -- lots of teasing and joshing, but with a deep undercurrent of respect and ardor.

"I love Brian Piccolo, and I'd like all of you to love him to," Sayers says in the movie's most oft-quoted line, apparently a direct quote from a speech he gave.

The filmmakers play up the racial aspect of a black man and a white man bonding in 1965, and one memorable scene has Piccolo trying to motivate Sayers' rehabilitation from a dreadful knee injury by calling him the n-word, which is so ham-fisted and ridiculous that it only provokes peals of laughter.

In the talent department, Piccolo perennially plays second fiddle to the highly-regarded Sayers, who ended up having a terrific though injury-shortened career, becoming the youngest person ever inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Something the movie doesn't show is that Piccolo actually didn't even make the Bears team the first year both men joined the Bears, being relegated to the modern equivalent of the practice team.

I confess that I did not tear up while watching "Brian's Song," or even come close to doing so. It's a well-done TV  movie, with splendid acting you don't normally see in that medium. But I found its reputation overinflated.

2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" falls into that spectrum of animation aimed squarely at kids. It's clear to me that "Meatballs" is a well-made film, even if I didn't like it all that much. I simply am not the target audience.

It's about a scientist, Flint Lockwood, who invents a machine that can turn water into food. Through a series of misadventures, his gizmo gets launched into the stratosphere over the island town of Chewsandswallows, resulting in a downpour of burgers, pizza, steak and candy whenever it rains.

Flint had been the town screw-up, but now he's hailed as a hero. He even finds a love interest in Sam Sparks, an intern at the Weather Channel who gets her big break when she's sent to cover the weird weather. Sam's a brainiac who is forced to hide behind a veneer of weather-girl dorkiness, but Flint sees through it.

Trouble looms when the food keeps getting bigger and bigger, until Buick-sized meatballs are raining down and causing havoc.

Although anyone over the age of 10 may find the movie tedious, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" is likely to leave young audiences hungry for more.

Video extras are rather meager with the DVD, but really pile on the buffet in the Blu-ray version. (A DVD/Blu-ray combo is available, which also includes a digital copy.)

Both versions come with a commentary track by co-directors/writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller plus star Bill Hader, who did the voice of Flint -- few insights, but moderately entertaining.

The making-of and voice casting documentaries are pretty typical fare; I liked the shots of animators working at their computers with big plates of food close at hand so they could study how spaghetti behaves when whirled about, or how a burger plops when dropped.

There's also two extended scenes; featurettes detailing the animation process; the "Raining Sunshine" music video; a "Food Fight" Space Invaders-type game; and a "splat mode" where kids can throw digital food at the screen while watching the movie.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" falls into that spectrum of animation that makes no bones about the fact that it's aimed squarely at kids.

Yes, it's nice when a movie can appeal to both adults and tykes, such as "Kung Fu Panda" or pretty much any of the Pixar flicks. And I've been very pleased with the growing number of animated films that are best appreciated by adults -- "9," "Waltz with Bashir," "Persepolis," etc.

But let's give the kiddie flicks their due: Somebody's got to entertain the wee ones, and they might as well do it well.

So it's clear to me that "Meatballs" is a well-made film, even if I didn't like it all that much. I simply am not the target audience.

Co-writers/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller -- both rookies -- adapted the best-selling children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett. It's about a young scientist, Flint Lockwood, who invents a machine that can turn water into food. Through a series of unintended mishaps, his gizmo gets launched into the stratosphere over the island town of Chewsandswallows, resulting in a downpour of burgers, steak, pizza and candy whenever it rains.

Flint had been the town screw-up, with all his many backfiring inventions, but now he's hailed as a hero. The island had been stagnating because its main staple, sardines, had been discovered to be gross by the world population. (I love the newspaper headline: "Sardines are gross!") So everyone on the island is sick of eating sardines, with the possible exception of Flint, who runs the local bait and tackle shop.

The daily manna from heaven is a huge boon to Chewsandswallows, even attracting the attention of Sam Sparks, an intern at the Weather Channel who gets her big break when she's sent to cover the weird weather. Sam's a brainiac who is forced to hide behind a veneer of weather-girl dorkiness, but Flint sees through it and soon they're an item.

Trouble looms when Flint overloads the machine at the behest of the town's greedy mayor, and soon things start to go screwy. The food keeps getting bigger and bigger, until Buick-sized meatballs are raining down and causing havoc.

The movie has a terrific voice cast, with Bill Hader as Flint and Anna Faris as Sam. James Caan, as Flint's dad, manages to find an emotional center despite only uttering a few dozen words. The redoubtable Bruce Campbell is the mayor, Neil Patrick Harris is a hoot as Flint's best friend/pet monkey Steve, and Mr. T is a revelation as the town's overly enthusiastic police chief.

As we've come to expect, the computer animation is crisp and inventive. Watch people's hair, in particular -- you can almost feel it tickle. If you can, make sure to catch the movie in 3-D -- the filmmakers manage to achieve a multitude of layers in every scene, without too many obvious objects flinging themselves at the camera.

Although anyone over the age of 10 may find the movie a bit tedious at times, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" is sure to leave young audiences hungry for more.

2.5 stars