Reviews WesternAnimation / Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

I don't see what's wrong with the TV adaptation

In 2017, Sony Pictures Animation made cartoon series based on their films Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania. I am here to talk about the former adaptation, which I have heard is completely awful in every way. So I decided to see how atrocious it is, and after watching a few episodes... I have to say that it's perfectly fine.

As an adaptation/prequel, I felt the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs show was reasonably faithful to the film. It has the semi-frenetic tone distinctive of Sony Animation movies, although the show is a bit more energetic. The series has its emotional core in place, with Flint and Sam's science-loving friendship being a central theme that replaces their movie romance. Sadly, this comes at the cost of downplaying Flint's relationship with his dad that was core to the film. This leads me to talk about the rampant Flanderization I have heard people trash this show for. Honestly, I didn't see it. While the characters have more simplified personalities compared to their film versions, the show got the gist of them and any simplification is arguably justifiable by the fact that it is a prequel, meaning the characters haven't quite become the ones we see in the film. Speaking of continuity, I felt the show did not seriously contradict anything important in the film due to its episodic nature; the first episode even gave a pretty good reason why Sam and Flint don't remember the fact they were friends in high school.

I have also heard many accuse the show of being gross and cruel. Honestly, I don't get them. With the former, most episodes had little to no gross humor; Baby Brent was the only source of it, and that was still minimal. As for the Sadist Show elements, the only examples I saw were Mayor Shelbourne's mistreatment of his son Gil, which I did not mind at all, because it perfectly fits with his Hate Sink characterization.

There's also the animation, which is quite nice overall, with appealing colors and solid movements. Many say the show has awful character designs, but I thought they were generally quite good. The CGI forms of the movie's cast neatly translated into a 2D style, although Flint's nose looks kinda wonky. But I got used to it quickly and found that he looked better from other angles than his default one.

If I had any complaints about the show, it's that the high school aspect does not need to shoehorn the entire cast (it's too weird seeing Earl as Flint and Sam's teacher and Mayor Shelbourne as the principal) and Gil feels unnecessary (they didn't need a main character who is never alluded to in the film), but they're not serious detriments to the series. Overall, the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs show is inoffensive. Fans of the film might be disappointed by how it doesn't add anything groundbreaking but can freely ignore it due to how the film establishes things, while casual viewers will find a decently enjoyable series that's perfectly fine on its own.