G-FORCE

Starring:
Bill Nighy, Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis and the vocal talents of Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan and Steve Buscemi

Director:
Hoyt Yeatman

Running Time:
89 mins

"I'm a highly trained agent"

With their FBI unit about to have their funding cut by Agent Kip Killian (Arnett), Ben (Galifianakis) sends out his secret agents on their first mission. Infiltrating the launch party of Saber electronics, the team gather information that reveals that its CEO (Nighy) is planning to take over all of the world’s electronics but when the trainee agents return, the information they gathered is corrupted. Failing their mission, the team of Darwin (Rockwell), Speckles (Cage), Juarez (Cruz) and Blaster (Morgan) have to face the fact they are not going to be agents but will have to return to just been guinea pigs and a mole but they are determined to save the world.

Whatever uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer turns his hand to usually turns to gold but can his foray into children’s entertainment and into the third dimension be just as successful?

When it comes to naming producers it is not as easy a task as naming directors or actors but one name always comes to the mind of any film fan and that name is Jerry Bruckheimer. The man behind cinematic blockbusters like ‘Top Gun’, ‘Armageddon’, ‘Con Air’, ‘National Treasure’, ‘The Rock’, ‘Bad Boys’, ‘Beverley Hills Cop’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, as well as TV hits like ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, ‘Cold Case’ and ‘Without a Trace’, has now turned his had to more family oriented fun and in ‘G-Force’, Bruckheimer and his creative team have another huge hit on their hands.

Jerry Bruckheimer’s skill is to produce movies for the masses and not for critical acclaim have made him a lot of money. While his movies are never going to be hits with the critics, they almost always do well with their audience demographic and take millions of dollars at the box office. ‘G-Force’ is another one of these movies, lambasted by critics but adored by its target audience. While critics watch previews in screening rooms with their fellow professionals, when you see what a movie like this with its intended audience, kids, they would realise that ‘G-Force’ hits on many levels.

The story is a simple one but well executed. Scientist Ben, played by Zach Galifianakis, has been training guinea pigs, moles, flies and cockroaches to become secret agents for the FBI. His biggest scientific breakthrough however is that he has discovered a way for them to communicate with us. This, of course, is a new direction for the FBI and one that is not welcomed by everyone, especially when the team of Darwin, Speckles, Juarez and Blaster are a new standard of special agent, even though they are Guinea Pigs and a super intelligent mole. Their mission is to undercover what Billionaire industrialist Saber, the always excellent Bill Nighy, is about to launch on the world and they are the only team that can stop it. Slight but fun in its execution.

The fun comes of the exceptional visual effects and one of the best uses of 3D to hit the cinema outside of a theme park. While many 3D movies have concentrated on creating a depth of field, ‘G-Force’ unashamedly makes the action jump out of the screen, especially during the explosive finale. Bringing to life the guinea pigs Darwin, Blaster, Juarez and Hurley, mole Speckles, fly Mooch and mad hamster Bucky using almost photorealistic graphics will fill the kids with joy. The vocal performances of Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi and Tracy Morgan create characters and not just animal versions of themselves. This is most evident with the vocal performance of Nicolas Cage as the super intelligent mole Speckles, who is completely unrecognisable and therefore gives his best career performance in years. For a man who has just been known to be playing Nicolas Cage in every movie he graces, this showcases a real talent for voice characterisation that he should really just concentrate on.

‘G-Force’ is genuinely fun family entertainment. Younger viewers and parents alike will reveal in the marvelous visual effects and the eye-popping use of 3D but while the story may not be a life changing experience, there is enough there to keep the target audience engaged and allow them to have fun throughout. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has another massive hit on his hands and lets hope we see of the ‘G-Force’

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2009