Rating of
N/A
Review - G-Force (2009)
Delorted - wrote on 12/15/09
When an evil corporation is out to take over the world, who do you call? The feds? James Bond? What about a couple guinea pigs with grappling hooks? This is the vague premise that led to the atrocity that is to be dissected here, otherwise known as G-Force.
The story is just as aforementioned: A team of guinea pigs with headsets that allow them to speak English infiltrate a secret organization working through a major global appliance corporation (like GE only with money and clients). Oddly, their most prominent foe throughout is the federal government, who wants nothing more than to see G-Force shut down. Oh, and little kids who for some reason find pleasure in torturing animals for no discernible reason.
Our heroes are four guinea pigs played by Sam Rockwell, Penélope Cruz, Tracy Morgan and Jon Favreau. Not too surprising to see Tracy Morgan annoying us throughout this film, but didn't Cruz just win an Oscar? Regardless, all of them are generally okay, with the exception of Tracy Morgan who will at this rate never become more than a one-note aggravation. I found myself pleasantly surprised, however, to find another movie in which I actually really liked Nicolas Cage. Technically he was only voicing a mole, but he was still acting. As for the humans, I was amazed at how unlikable and unused Will Arnett was, considering they hired him for a role. He does nothing really and gives what seems to be a very poor performance, though I honestly think it was just his dialogue.
The script for this film is nearly intolerable. The stereotypes and atrocious dialogue aside, none of the characters are fleshed out to more than one joke per person. Penélope Cruz's character is quite possibly the worst female figure I have ever seen in a a children's film, and every single line of Tracy Morgan's dialogue is either him saying something annoying or asking Cruz's character on a date. It's just so generic and forced that you can totally tell Disney only wanted to make a movie with cute animals doing unnatural things, whether it's good or not (wow, I suddenly want to see Hostel with gerbils, and I don't know how disturbing that is exactly). The layout is predictable and, except for one bit of a twist at the end, I never found myself surprised by anything; it ended up being more boring than infuriating because of how predictable all the lame jokes were.
The computer-generated animals here are no better than I've seen before, which isn't good because I have yet to see a computer-generated animal in a live-action film that convinced me. The guinea pigs are all very cleanly animated, which is to say their fur never seems quite natural. On the other side, however, they are throughout the entire third act fighting computer-generated machines which look really good. The fact that Disney is able to make better looking transformers than Michael Bay really says something. The practical effects are few and far between, and when they do show up they go from being not very impressive to practically laughable (a car gets crushed and it looks like it was made of balsa wood).
While G-Force is crap, it's really no worse than most Disney crap. It's totally pandering to the kids, making it nearly unwatchable for adults. If one were to only watch the third act, however, I think they might find this film surprisingly entertaining. Otherwise, only the kids will have fun.
FINAL VERDICT: 2/5
