Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was pretty much everyone’s childhood dreams come true. Why have a snow day when you can have a “snowflakes made of ice cream falling and making huge mountain scoops of frozen sugary milky goodness” day? There is still a decent sized part of me who dreams of that every night. When the trailers for this movie first came out, I expected the dreamy whimsical bedtime story of the town of Chewandswallow (I wish I was clever enough to come up with something inappropriate to say here) where food falls from the sky. In the book, no one questions why — in fact, there are no real characters to do the questioning — and the weather’s always sunny-side up until the food starts to destroy the town with monstrously large hot dogs and killer pancakes.

Instead, Sony Pictures Animation film version of the story starts from scratch. Phil Lord and Chris Miller create a technological explanation for the tasty weather brought about by a well-cast set of characters, sprinkled with clever puns and various subtle but not-actually-so-subtle social commentaries (Happy Feet anyone?). Flint, the awkwardly lovable wannabe scientist, comes up with a half-baked plan to turn water into food. Originally a town sustained by the sardine trade, Swallow Falls becomes the town of Chewandswallow when Flint’s butter fingers let his invention fly out of his hands and out into the atmosphere (it looks almost believable in 3D, I promise) — thus creating food weather and saving the town from surviving solely on tiny oily gross fish.

As I was watching, I kept looking over at the person next to me and saying, “Haha, did you get that? Yeah, I got it! Wasn’t that so witty?!” Maybe I just enjoy blatantly obvious food puns, but even so, if you ever re-watch a kids movie, there are a million times when you think to yourself, “I can’t believe I didn’t catch that borderline sexual innuendo when I was seven!” Seeing movies like Cloudy as a college student makes you want to go back and watch every other kids movie to see how many jokes your undeveloped seven-year-old mind missed. Along with jokes, there are also some extremely clever sound bites addressing social issues such as immigration that I personally don’t think the majority of the third graders in the theater fully appreciated. Intermixed with an abundance of food puns, these kinds of secret moments that only the elites (or grown-ups) are able to understand make Cloudy enjoyable for all.

Flint, voiced by Bill Hader, is your typical nerd who dreams of growing up to become a mad scientist. From his chemistry beaker bed sheets to his laboratory which reminds me of a more ghetto Dexter’s Laboratory with a Simon as an entry code (I’m pretty sure it was Blue, Blue, Yellow, Green, Blue but don’t quote me on that), Flint takes us all back to the days of make-your-own-crystal kits and being laughed at for liking science. His love interest, Sam (Anna Faris, in contrast to her typical dumb blonde characters from House Bunny or Just Friends), is a geek-turned-hottie weather girl who has succumbed to society’s superficiality by losing her glasses, ponytail and intelligent vocabulary in order to not be made fun of. Flint and Sam are accompanied by Andy Samberg’s “Baby” Brent, a grown-up meathead who rides on his childhood fame as the poster child of Chewandswallow’s Coppertone-baby-like sardine ads. And for dessert is the police officer, voiced by Mr. T., whose outrageousness (his chest hairs even tingle in times of danger!) is a comedic treat. NPH also makes an appearance as Flint’s monkey, putting the final touches on a cast too delectably trendy to pass up.

At first, Flint’s invention seems to be the answers to everyone’s prayers but no sooner can Sam make a terrific pun about “Meatier showers” (get it?! Meteor showers!) than things start to get fishy. The scientifically engineered food mutates to abnormally large sizes, threatening the lives of Chewandswallowers everywhere. Greedy and gluttonous Mayor Shelbourne ignores all signs of danger as he stuffs himself with disgusting combinations of food and promotes the town as a gaudy tourist attraction. Embedded within the main story of the spaghetti apocalypse is the conflict between Flint and his simpleminded fisherman father who just doesn’t seem to catch on to Flint’s scientific aspirations.

As socially conscious Cornellians, we can appreciate Sony tackling such topics as the dangers of advanced technology, political corruption, obesity, genetic engineering and even immigration. From Wall-E to Cloudy, recent animated films have made it a point to include clever remarks addressing current issues in their PG children’s movies. While they aren’t usually blatant enough to bring down the general cheery mood of the films, the comments are just relevant and astute enough to make us think.

The animation proved to be crisp, vibrant and realistically cartoonish (if that’s even possible). Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is available at select theaters in 3D which super-sizes the experience to jumbo (pro)portions. Will the town of Chewandswallow survive? Will Flint save the day and finally gain his dad’s approval? Will Sam and Flint ever get together and make the cutest awkward couple ever? I could give away the ending to this pun-packed, character driven, delightfully animated film but omelette you see it for yourself. (Get it!?)