ViewGuide

Created Sep 13, 2009 09:21PM PST • Edited Feb 12, 2014 11:07PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Gobs of fun for kids and adults, this high octane spoof features lifelike animation seamlessly blended with live action, mucho LOL, a clever story and hip-kid music. Plus the 3D works splendidly, as fresh an experience as color must have seemed to B&W audiences back in the day.

   The story about some of God’s lesser creatures who function as FBI agents provides plenty of fodder for humor, action, intrigue and even a bit of social commentary. Who knew guinea pigs could be so rocking?

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Big name voice actors come through in spades: Nicolas Cage as a brilliant mole, Sam Rockwell, Penélope Cruz, and Tracy Morgan as the romantic triangle at the core of G-Force, Jon Favreau as a lovable shlub, and Steve Buscemi as a self-hating ferret. Perfect casting or what?

   The live action players mostly remain understated, wise given how over-the-top the rest of the movie is.

   • Bill Nighy easily creates a Richard Branson-Steve Jobs hybrid character.
   • Zach Galifianakis plays a lovable straight-man here, never once breaking out his wild comic chops. Still, as I noted following his breakout performance in The Hangover, the guy hardly has to appear on screen without raising a smile.
   • Kelli Garner’s cute-as-a-button lab assistant brought Brigitte Bardot to mind. Crazy you say? Garner’s lips are arguably the most curvaceous since those of the perfectly pouty Bardot. This might not count for much with the kids in the audience, but dads deserve treats too.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Bruckheimer writ small: Think The Rock or Bad Boys performed in kid friendly fashion by a team of lifelike talking rodents. Only funny. Consistently funny. Wow. Few films are this brilliantly conceived, written and executed.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

    Longtime visual effects creator Hoyt Yeatman demonstrates he can direct big budget commercial hits with the best of them. While this is his first major directorial effort, he supervised visual effects for almost 50 FX laden films, including Armageddon, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and The Abyss.

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Husband and wife writers Cormac & Marianne Wibberley capture the zeitgeist of both kids and adults in often knee slapping fashion. As with the best kids movies these days, many of the lines are targeted squarely at the parents in the audience. They came fast and furious here. If anything it was a bit tough to keep up.

13. Music Great 4.0

    Hip music to be sure. I dropped it off of Perfect because there was no signature song breaking out from the movie.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Wowowow. Super cool toys shown in modern 3D. Plus a fly that seemed to emerge from the row right behind our’s.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.2

    Threatening dogs, a scary snake and de rigueur flatulence jokes. The last are pretty darn funny BTW.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.7

    A fantastic BioReality conceit (humanesque intelligence in rodents), yet just run-of-the-mill PhysioReality and CircoReality conceits make this FX heavy movie easy to accept for young and old alike.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Surreal 3.0