Space Chimps (2008)

Very well executed

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Not even bad in a good way

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I rented it for my 3 kids to watch. They range in age 5, 8, and 11. All 3 were fully entertained! They always have to check out any movie with chimps as the main characters-- and although animated, they laughed throughout. The graphics weren't the best out there but the jokes made up for it. There is something for everyone. Boys and girls will enjoy it. The character of kilowatt is one of the cutest I've ever seen. And the lead of Ham has some off beat jokes you'd probably find in more adult comedies. It's the kind of movie you'll feel good after watching it. I didn't recognize any of the actors as "big names" but it was still entertaining. Check it out with the kiddos!

Have you seen movies that almost wore you out after 45 minutes? Im talking about too much action, too much bickering and yelling between people, too much happening the screen, too loud.....just too much. You want to cry, "enough, already....give us a few lulls!" That's how found this cute-at-first animated film which starts off great but quickly spirals into the "too much" category and never lets go. Maybe I'm just too old for this sort of thing; maybe this is what five or ten-year-olds want....but I'm not surprised this animated film wasn't a hit - with adults or some kids.Don't get wrong: there are a number of funny lines in here, the animation is great in spots, and some of the characters (i.e. "Kilowatt") are very appealing. It's just that the film feels rushed, right from the start. One can never just settle down and enjoy the stories, character and artwork. This story needed more lulls.It also need less ("wink" "wink") inside, pretentious remarks by the writers, who tried too hard to get their PC agendas in here throughout. The "heroes," the space chimps, were always bickering among themselves. That led to some funny put-down lines but also got tiring, too, after almost an hour of it. The villain, "Zartog," meanwhile, was just plain stupid. Nobody that silly/dumb, even in science fiction, could rule anyone.In all, it was just too disjointed and too frenetic - all the while being predictable - to enjoy. Although only 80 minutes in length, I found myself often checking how much time was left in the film.

I'm not really sure what you people were looking for, but this movie was, at worst, fairly enjoyable. It will not win the academy award for best animated film, but there are thousands of other, much, much worse animated films out there. This review isn't to help anyone decide if they should rent the movie or not (maybe I'm biased because I only paid $1.00 to rent it?), but more so to just defend it a little bit. My 5 and 6 year old sons got a kick out of it. THAT'S IT. Review could be over here. They are intelligent boys who have seen some great kids movies - and they recognize the great ones. They know this one was not one of the best movies they've ever seen. And they don't care. They pretty much enjoyed it, and that's all you should expect. It was a G-rated movie which is nice to see (they're watching "Surf's Up" - free on cable right now - and one of the characters said "crap" which I don't like). It had an OK plot, OK/somewhat amusing characters, some excitement, some funny stuff, a clear point/moral (people who don't catch that should NOT be allowed to write reviews). Stop making more of it than it is. I mean, one reviewer - or maybe it was on a message board - said (and I'm paraphrasing just a little bit), "I didn't connect with any of the characters AND NEITHER DID MY 4 YEAR OLD SON." I wonder how exactly they asked their 4-yr old the question... "honey, did you feel a connection with any of the Space Chimps? How about the aliens? No, none of them either? Hmmm, I thought so..." C'MON!! Hey, if you paid $10 bucks a pop to see this one, well shame on you. But otherwise, get over it, folks! It's not that bad.

Most of the voices provided here are by actors most of have never heard of, the exceptions being Jeff Daniels and Stan Tucci. Nevertheless, the voices are very nicely done.This is a story of modern day space exploration, but featuring the fact that we first sent Chimps up into space to verify that a near-human species could survive. We now know that they did, and then we did.Andy Samberg voices Ham III, the grandson of Ham I who was the first Chimp in space. Ham III is working in a circus and his specialty is being shot far into the air, through a hole in the tent, and then falling back through the hole and into padding. But we see that he mostly misses.An unmanned space probe is lost, apparently sucked into a far galaxy via a wormhole, so space agency bureaucrats come up with the idea to send Chimps, and they want Ham III because of his grandfather's feats.Ham III is not at all cooperative, but soon finds himself blasted into space with cute female Chimp Cheryl Hines as Luna. This makes his trip tolerable.They manage to get sucked into the same wormhole and crash land in this strange world with strange beings. But fortunately they all speak the same language and there is water and air on the planet. The rest of the story is about them surviving a ruthless dictator who is now using the lost space probe for his evil benefit. And then converting this craft into something that can get them back home to Earth, with the help of a soon to erupt volcano as the strange world's 3 suns align.This is just fluff of entertainment, but fun and funny fluff. Of course we know Chimps can't talk and repair sophisticated electronic gear, but we also know that Marty McFly can't travel through time in a Delorean. Sometimes we just have to put reality aside and enjoy what we see!