Review: ‘Space Chimps’

Ram Man:

2008 is the year of the comic book movie, then it’s also the year we send our animated stars into space. Following the smash hit Wall-E, 20Th Century Fox is sending the primates packing in Space Chimps! Space chimps features a cast of voices that include Patrick Warburton (The Tick), Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Stanley Tucci (Devil Wears Prada) and Andy Samberg (Hot Rod).

Kirk DiMecco tells the story of Ham III (Samberg) a circus stunt chimp and  grandson of a famous chimp/astronaut Ham III that went to the moon in the early days prior to the manned Apollo missions.  Ham III  is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame and escape the large shadow cast by his grandfather. When a mysterious black hole opens in space and sucks a probe to the other end of the galaxy NASA is forced to bring back the chimps. That’s when the government comes knocking and Ham is drafted into service and will accompany Titan (Warburton) and Luna (Hines) into space.   NASA soon learns that they have the “wrong” stuff with Ham but continue with the mission anyway.

The primates are sent through the blackhole at 10.5 G’s that disables Luna and Titan and forces Ham to land/crash the ship on a new planet to recover the probe. This is where I was lost ..in the wormhole..because the planet on the other side of the galaxy was like a smurf cartoon on LSD. The new planet is full of bright colors and creature that look like exiles from Fraggle Rock. From the minute the chimps land I can’t wait for them to return home.

Space chimps is a kids movie. I am a movie geek and kid at heart according to my wife, so I made a point to get the crowd full of kids reaction to the picture…and I’m still waiting for it. I think Space chimps is opening this weekend opposite the Dark Knight to slip into DVD obscurity as fast as it can. Space Chimps could have been a great kids movie , if they wouldn’t have dumbed down the new world, had it in 3D and got a few bigger names for voices and they would have had the “Right Stuff”! My recommendation if you have kids that are under the age of 7 take them to check out a matinee of space chimps..otherwise get in line and go check out the bat.

Travis:

Yikes! Starz is really getting big, but I think they may have ventured into the realm of computer-animated features too quickly. I could have seen ‘Space Chimps’ making a debut on DVD, but after seeing the film I am shocked that it is being given a wide theatrical release. It’ll be interesting to see what its overall box office numbers end up looking like.

‘Space Chimps’ is about Ham III, grandson of the legendary chimp Ham I who was rocketed into space as a test flight before human astronauts would later make the same journey. Ham III is a daredevil chimp trying to make his name on the circus circuit, but has no interest in following in his grandfather’s footsteps … but, the government of humans doesn’t care and they team him with two other chimps, Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton), sending them on a mission to retrieve a space probe that was lost through a wormhole in space. Their mission reveals life in outer space on a strange planet on the other side of the universe. On this planet, an alien bully has gained power as a tyrannical dictator over his fellow aliens and is forcing them into slavery, building a massive palace for him. If they refuse, he dunks them into the fresnar … which is some kind of quick-setting cement-like liquid that resembles aluminum and flows from the alien planet’s volcano. Ham III finds a love interest in Luna, an unlikely friendship with the by-the-books commander Titan and succeeds at fulfilling his destiny in the process of several near screw-ups.

The animation in ‘Space Chimps’ wasn’t too bad, until the space chimps arrive on the alien planet. When the alien planet is first revealed I was slapped in the face with what I can only describe as an animated Teletubbies set gone horribly wrong. The alien bully had a striking resemblance in personality characteristics to Shrek. The film is loaded with excruciatingly painful puns and cliche’s. ‘Space Chimps’ contains several truly blatant references to other sci-fi space movies, adding something to the movie, but not enough to save it from disaster. I saw ‘Space Chimps’ in a reasonably well-attended screening and I cannot account for seeing and/or hearing any adult (including myself) actually laughing at anything “funny” in this movie. On a rare occasion, a few (myself included) would snicker at something because its soooooooo bad. In fact, I recall only a few laughs coming from the child audience, and most of those were from kids too young to fully understand what they were watching. My overall opinion … you may want to avoid this film, kids or no kids. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!