DEL.ICIO.US

DIGG

FACEBOOK

Sponsored by

When a senator orders a chimp astronaut Ham III to pursue a lost space probe, Ham, the least likely hero, is launched into an animated comedy adventure

RATING: G

GENRE: Animated comedy

RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2008

RUNNING TIME: 81 minutes

VIOLENCE FACTOR: None

BAD WORDS: None

RACY? No

GRANDS:

CRITIQUE:

Space Chimps is not great, but it's also a victim of bad timing. Not so many years ago, this simian lark might have been thought of as a respectable big-screen attraction for grandchildren. Now in the golden age of animation (think Kung Fu Panda and WALL-E) it's almost impossible to go ape for Space Chimps.

The film, a computer-animated comic adventure about chimpanzee astronauts, takes some of its cues from reality. Protagonist Ham III (voiced by Andy Samberg), is the grandchild (or grandchimp) of Ham, the real-life chimp who NASA shot into space in 1961. Ham III doesn’t spend much time thinking about his family's place in history. Instead, ham that he is, he works as a circus performer, getting shot out of a cannon for laughs each night. Jokes and mischief are Ham's stock-in-trade, so in astronaut terms, he has the "wrong stuff."

That is until a $5 million space probe disappears, and a publicity-seeking senator in charge of funding NASA (Stanley Tucci) wants Ham to take a different tack. The senator demands that Ham, given his family history, join an all-simian mission to retrieve the wayward craft from a mysterious, newly discovered planet. Ham eventually agrees. His crewmates are sensible, attractive Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton), their by-the-book commander.

The trio discovers, however, that their mysterious destination is far from a hospitable planet of the apes. In fact, it's ruled by a dictator (Jeff Daniels) who means harm to our heroes. Heck, he means harm to everyone, even his own subjects.

Cowriter Kirk De Micco, directing his first feature, cannot hide the cheapjack look of his film, but that may be a budgetary necessity. The bigger problem is that there's a lack of ambition in the script; it's as if De Micco assumes that merely having chimps as his main characters is humorous enough. It isn't.

Space Chimps doesn't lift off far enough to challenge anyone, but it should hold the attention of young grandchildren for an hour-and-half — before it scurries up a tree trunk and right out of their memory banks.

GP Rating System:

Four Grands = Bravo, don't miss it.
Three Grands = Pretty good, short list it.
Two Grands = Just okay, don't dismiss it.
One Grand = Yeah, we dissed it.

Log in or register now to add your comments.
Screen name
Password
	Forgot your password?
Register Now!