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Movie Review: Space Chimps
“Space Chimps” just doesn’t fly
By Ella Parker
2theadvocate.com
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PLAY OFFICIAL TRAILER
One small step for man, one giant leap for chimp-kind -- or so the saying should have gone.
Written by Kirk De Micco and Robert Moreland, this animated summer flick may not make it to the moon. It has good intentions, but it is far from being ‘out-of-this-world.’ With five talking chimps, a lot of space equipment and technical-sounding terms, a geek-squad of three humans, and a corporate-driven senator, what could go wrong?
Well, besides the very first space scene …
After the spacecraft orbits into an unexpected wormhole, Dr. Smothers (voiceover by Kath Soucie) locates the famous chimp-astronaut’s grandson, Ham III (voice by Andy Samberg) to go on a space mission. However, this circus-raised chimp does things his own way, finding it difficult to be part of the chimp crew. Stuck in his seemingly stubborn mannerisms, Ham III has Luna (voice by Cheryl Hines) and Titan (voice by Patrick Warburton), two government-trained space chimps, to balance him out while they go on their ‘out-of-this-world’ adventure.
Wait. There’s more. They land on a whole other planet made up of biting vines and figure-forming gum-drops and the evil alien Zartog (voice Jeff Daniels), who attempts to dominate his planet by freezing his ‘slaves.’
Overwhelmed yet?
From the very first colorful wormhole, the movie travels quickly, jumping from earth to space to new planet to chimps to circus to space center to chimps to space to planet to jungle to cave to earth to planet … and it continues. Maybe the film attempts to do too much with its multiple storylines. Or maybe it is confused with who the target audience is.
Occasionally, there are laugh-out-loud lines and visuals, but most of these moments are directed toward an older audience. For example, Luna and Ham fall onto a “Dark Cloud of Id” and end up exploring their feelings — a super-ego-meets-id moment — or rather, psychoanalytic babble that will fly right over children’s heads.
Another memorable and hilarious moment occurs when Luna can’t look, Ham doesn’t want to listen, and Titan feels as if he’ll throw up. Think about it. Now, picture it. Pretty clever: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. But don’t blink because you will miss it.
Furthermore, I admit that I was slightly annoyed with the stereotypical depiction of ‘the geek-squad — all wearing glasses and clinging onto their pocket protectors. Even more bothersome was the forced love connection between the simians. Why try to develop a chimp love story on top of everything else?
I cannot be too critical because the writers do intertwine those fun, quirky happenings that children will laugh at — a chimp falling on a banana, a chimp cutting a rug and a member of the geek-squad doing the robot. But it is probably not enough to make this animation fly toward being a blockbuster.
This is entertaining, but one that could wait to be rented.
