Mini Movie Review: Space Chimps

Well, this will be the first of an occasional feature here... the Mini Movie Review.

We saw Space Chimps the other night. You've really got to have your expectations set going into this. We took a gaggle of 8 year olds. It was certainly no Shrek, but was still entertaining. If you go in expecting a good, compelling, exciting, funny movie, you'll come out pretty disappointed. If you go in expecting a couple hours of leaving your brain in the car and keeping the kids entertained, you'll be OK.

We went in with fairly low expectations, and saw it at the "dollar theater" (five people for $7.50! Yowza!). We were pleasantly surprised. The plot and screenplay are almost entirely predictable, the animation so-so. The aliens are straight out of some TV kid's show. In fact, when they first appeared, I was sure the camera was going to pan back to show the chimps watching a kids show featuring aliens. The chimps themselves were pretty well done.

The good part of the movie was the nearly endless stream of inside jokes, industry references, and adult-level humor throughout the movie. It kept us laughing. In particular, watch for the replay of the Leia / Solo / Spaceship repair scene from The Empire Strikes Back.

I'd rate this move as decent for a dollar theater, or maybe a rainy-day rental. I'm glad we didn't pay retail, but I'm not sorry we saw it.