VOTD: 'Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs' As A 60-Second, Live-Action Short

Phil Lord and Chris Miller's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs contains so many crazy, fantastical elements that I never figured the story could've worked as anything but an animated film. I mean, c'mon. Live-action hobbits or dragons or space battles are one thing, but live-action hamburger storms would just be ridiculous, right?

But perhaps that's just my own lack of imagination talking, because appropriately named YouTube user Megasteakman has reimagined the foodie tale as a 60-second live-action short, and the results are actually quite charming. Watch the video after the jump.

[via Movieline]

The whole endeavor has an endearingly low-rent feel to it, almost like one of those "sweded" films. But the CG's surprisingly well done, which goes a long way toward making, say, the enormous Jell-O tower and the spray-on shoes blend in with the film's more realistic elements. (Or, you know, as much as such things can blend in.) Credit is also due to the actors, who aren't afraid to go all-out and sell the hell out of the very cartoonish cartoon characters voiced in the original movie by Bill Hader and Anna Faris.

All in all, I think the 60-second live-action version does a solid job of reproducing the charm of the original — not an easy task, considering how lovable Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was. Miller himself seems to agree, tweeting "Wow. Holy crap" in response to the video.

If you liked what you saw, you can help out the filmmakers by heading to Virgin Radio and voting in the 2012 Fake Film Festival; look for the Like button under the bottom right corner of the video. Or take your time browsing through some of the other entries, which include 60-second versions of Alice in Wonderland, The Great Dictator, and Requiem for a Dream (with puppets!).