Featured Review: SPACE CHIMPS

Space Chimps



Starring Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth, Stanley Tucci, Jane Lynch, Carlos Alazraqui



Directed by Kirk De Micco



Grade: D



"Let's chimp this ride!"

Space Chimps, the second of three computer-animated tales about non-humans going into space this summer, is by far much less quality than its' predecessor, the stunning and exquisite Pixar offering Wall-E. Sadly, with Fly Me To The Moon yet to be released, this laughable and insulting excuse of a film to 'entertain' children, may not even be the worse of the lot. But it certainly fails to muster any sympathy with a no-budget animation crew and the lamest excuse of a script this side of the nebula, even by kiddie film standards.

Produced by Vanguard and Starz Animation (raise your hand if you knew the premium cable movie channel had its own animation division), Space Chimps looks like a product of a burgeoning technical college animator circa 1994. One can use the excuse of the simple and bare graphics as eye-pleasing to the youngest children who might be scared of some imagery in Wall-E. But let's face it, Toy Story had more depth and complexity in its computer generated scenery than Space Chimps, and the former film was released THIRTEEN years ago. This is just a cheap attempt to cash in on the cartoon market.

We meet Ham III (voice of Andy Samberg), a circus performer and grandson of the famous Ham, revered as the first hominid to successful fly in outer space (possibly because in real life at least half the monkeys launched during the era died). Ham III however, doesn't have the same ambition. But when the space program comes under flak for losing an expensive probe in a wormhole, letting a meglomaniac alien (voice of Jeff Daniels) bent on ruling his home planet with a giant casino inherit it, they use Ham III and fellow more serious chimps Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton) as a last-ditch public relations stunt to retrieve the probe.

If there's one minor kudos to be given to the animators, it would be the texture of the monkeys. At least the detail of their fur seem to been given a little time to materialize. But the set pieces and other beings that populate the film are so terrible-looking, it sucks whatever tiny bit of clean and composite animation right out of your brain. The NASA space center and the humans therein are chunky and lifeless looking, while the alien planet the chimps descend upon is again, cheap enough to be made on a Macintosh in 1994.

But if that isn't sad enough, the characters and the script are completely asinine as well. There is a mentor simian named Houston (who looks eerily like a chimp version of actor Gary Cole. Was that intentional?), named specifically for a "Houston, we have a problem" joke. Every other line spoken by Titan is a pun involving 'chimp'. "We'll have to chimprovise!" and "Let's chimp this ride!" are not exactly what constitutes a good movie. Then we're littered with random references to Beverly Hills Cop and David Bowie, just to see if parents are paying attention. Worse yet is a couple of off-color remarks that to adults can insinuate sexual references, but still should have no place in a G-rated film whether the kids get it or not.

Jeff Daniels at least does some liberations with his voice, because his villainous alien character Zartog sounds nothing like him. But that's also to say his new voice is awful, loud and screeching. The same could be said for Kristin Chenoweth's character, nicknamed Kilowatt (again, so named as an eye-rolling pun). Every moment she's on screen, there's a shrillness in her voice that can only be heard by dogs. The fact that Kilowatt claims she's the last of her race on the planet, then towards the end of the movie we see several more just like her in the crowd just proves how poorly conceived this whole project was.

Maybe it's futile to debunk a film that's squarely aimed at the crowd young enough to believe anybody and their grandmothers can go into outer space. But when there's magnificent entertainment for children out there, including Wall-E and Kit Kittredge, there's no reason for Space Chimps to have to pander to the lowest recesses of our toddler's minds. We need to engage them in thoughtful, well-written entertainment. But for Space Chimps, that's 'chimply' not the case.