Review of Space Chimps (2008) by Cheri H — 24 Jun 2009

20th Century Fox hasn't been a studio that has delivered many good computer animated films. I'm not a fan of the Ice Age series so far, and I felt Robots was full of outdated ideas and characters. The only film that I really liked from Fox was Horton Hears a Who!, which I nominated at this year's ThirdMan Awards for Best Animated Film. So I wasn't expecting much out of Kirk De Micco's Space Chimps.

I never intended to see Space Chimps. It was one of those weird mornings when you are off from work, and you wake up really early and can't get back to sleep, and you sit there flipping through the channels trying to find something. Since there was nothing on, Space Chimps seemed remotely worth a chance. After all, if it were truly bad it might put me back to sleep.

Mediocre is the word that comes to mind when I reflect on Space Chimps. There isn't anything particular about the film that stands out. The characters aren't that interesting, the villain of the film is lame and the film's adventure story is a bit on the uneventful side. But there is something charming deep down in this film. While I didn't care for the characters, they were at least adorable looking enough to win me over.

It seems that films like these try to draw people in by having recognizable names attached to them, which is something that annoys me. Despite that, I liked the voice acting in Space Chimps. Andy Samberg created nice charisma with Ham III, and he had a few lines of dialogue I liked and managed to get a chuckle out of me. And I thought that Kristin Chenoweth, who I fell in love with in the wrongfully canceled series Pushing Daisies, played the big headed glowing alien Kilowatt in a cute manner.

Even though nothing major happens in the film, I can still say that the film rarely is dull or boring. I'm usually hard on films like this, which I consider mindless entertainment for children. In an age where Pixar releases well developed children's films, it's a shame that studios still make stuff like this. Still, Space Chimps isn't as annoying as most other non-Pixar animated films are.