We just had robots in space (WALL-E), and soon we will have insects in space (Fly Me to the Moon), but for now, thanks to Space Chimps, we have monkeys in space. Can a revival of The Muppet Show‘s “Pigs in Space” segment be far off?
Alas, Space Chimps isn’t exactly up to Pixar’s standards in the technical quality or charming characterization departments, and it’s so underwhelming on so many levels that it’s pretty much guaranteed to be less fun than Fly Me to the Moon, which, no matter how bad it might be (and I haven’t seen it yet, so for all I know it might actually be good), will at least have the benefit of being released in 3-D.
Space Chimps does have its merits, to a point. For one thing, the script, by director Kirk De Micco (who previously co-wrote the talking-zebra movie Racing Stripes) and Robert Moreland (Happily N’Ever After), demonstrates a genuine fondness for the early days of NASA, and the animation is at its most impressive when it replicates the look and feel of rockets blasting off and objects floating in zero gravity.
The story takes as its starting point a real-life chimp named Ham, who became the first hominid to be launched into space way back in 1961. Ham, who died in 1983, is referred to here as Ham I, to distinguish him from his fictitious grandson Ham III (voice of Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg), a circus performer who capitalizes on his grandfather’s fame by getting himself shot out of a cannon and up into the sky on a nightly basis. He does it to bask in the celebrity, but you get the sense he also wants a taste, just a taste, of what it might have been like to reach for the stars.
Ham’s dreams come true when NASA decides it needs to send some chimps, rather than humans, on a dangerous mission into space. NASA already has some chimps on staff, as it were, but the Senator (Stanley Tucci) who oversees the space program thinks the existing chimps are all nerds and the mission needs a public-relations boost—so he calls on Ham to join the mission and lend his famous name to it, even though Ham has no training in such things and is actually something of a klutz.
The mission itself, however, is where this movie really falls apart. A NASA probe has passed through a wormhole that is remarkably close to Earth, and has landed on a planet on the other side of that wormhole, so now the chimps—including the sensible Luna (Cheryl Hines) and the constantly punning Titan (Patrick Warburton, who is apparently required by law to be in every cartoon ever made)—are being sent to that planet to make sure that it is habitable for Earth-based lifeforms.
But the planet itself is a tacky, fake, excessively cartoonish environment, in sharp contrast to the reasonably realistic depiction of NASA; it is as though the animators, after spending the bulk of their presumably small budget on the Earth-set scenes, decided to settle for something cheap and inexpensive and call it “alien.”
And the copied-and-pasted creatures who populate this world aren’t much better. In design, they give the impression that the animators scribbled off a few shapes that looked “weird” and “different,” but without putting much thought into them. Personality-wise, the bulk of them turn out to be even dumber than they look.
The villain among these aliens, a bully named Zartog (Jeff Daniels), happened to lose his house when the first NASA probe crash-landed on it. On this probe, he found a video that celebrates the fact that humans like their leisure time. (Was it produced by Buy n Large?) So, Zartog used the probe as a means to intimidate his neighbors is forcing them to build new Vegas-like structures in his name. He dips any non-cooperative minions in a silvery substance that renders them immobile and effectively turns them into statues.
When the chimps arrive on the second NASA ship, Zartog immediately tries to claim this machine for himself as well. He succeeds in taking Titan captive, but Ham and Luna take a different path and eventually decide that they must somehow repair the damage that the first NASA probe did to the balance of power on this planet.
Along the way, the chimps deal with the usual questions that are raised by cartoon characters of this sort: Should they pursue their own self-interest, or should they band together for a higher cause, and so on. But unlike other films, which try to find some genuine drama in these dilemmas, Space Chimps treats these questions like obligatory plot points, settling them almost as soon as they are raised.
The movie is so routine that at times you welcome some of the more offbeat things that come up, such as Kilowatt (Kristin Chenoweth), an alien creature who looks kind of like a bald Precious Moments baby with a super-inflated head, and who has a knack for suddenly singing incredibly high-pitched notes whenever she’s afraid. Her sudden noises are the sort of thing that might jolt you out of your sleep, but let’s face it, the movie shouldn’t be letting you doze off in the first place.
>Talk About It
Discussion starters- How would you describe Ham’s relationship with his grandfather? Does he want to be more like him? Does he want to be different? How is it a good thing for him to emulate his grandfather? How might it be a bad thing? (Note the scene where Ham III imagines that his grandfather is telling him: “Well of course you’re not me, you’re you. … Just do things your way.” Is that good advice? Bad advice? Both?)
- Do the chimps have any sort of responsibility to the people of that other planet? What about the first NASA probe? The chimps did not send it themselves—should they still try to do something about the effect it had on those other people?
- Kilowatt learns to control her fear—which, in her case, seems to mean not only preventing herself from being afraid, but letting herself be afraid at times. Is there anything we can learn from her example? When might fear be a good thing?
The Family Corner
For parents to considerSpace Chimps is rated G with no advisory. The dialogue includes an “oh Lord” and an “oh my God” as well as puns like “Let’s chimp this ride.” Ham III is depicted as a “bad boy” of sorts—we see his mug shot when he says “I met the Chief of Police once”—but he finds redemption over the course of the movie.
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