NoodleNews

Ah, another week, another kids film with the added joy of 3D added in. Whether it’s worth paying £1.50 (ish) extra each time you want to view a film in 3D is a totally different argument and can be saved for another blog post. What is true however is that 3D does add a lot to a movie, and makes cinema-going that little bit more magical – especially for younger visitors.

Walt Disney films have always captured the imagination of kids (young and old) and have always felt magical in some way – any trip to Disneyland certainly connects this. Dissapointingly, G-Force 3D seems to lack some of this classic Disney magic. Whilst the film itself is an enjoying watch, it did not captivate or humour me as much as other Disney films have in the past.

Okay, so it is a kids film, and rated a PG – maybe I’m just not meant to get it… Yet, classic Disney animations, like Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and (my favourite of all time) Toy Story all manage to captivate audiences young and old, almost with two layers of scriptwriting for the adults and the children. It’s this lack of clever jokes and so on that makes G-Force (at times) feel a little one-dimensional.

The story is fairly standard really. Three guinea pigs (and a mole) are part of a secret Government unit of spies. The unit is set to be shutdown and so the guinea pig team (named G-Force) have to pretty much rescue the world from the evil Clusterstorm virus whilst proving they are worth FBI funding from the US Government. Of course, all the classic plot twists and turns are involved too – but I’ll save spoiling them for you as I don’t wish to ruin your enjoyment ;)

G Force poster

As with any animated film, it’s very hard to judge performances by voice actors. Having said this, all the voice acting is done brilliantly – with the actors lending their voices well to a bunch of rodents as hearing Penelope Cruz’s voice coming out of a guinea pig will always be surreal. The live action (yes, the film mixes live action with animated guinea pigs… if I failed to mention this already, it’s because it’s a rather dodgy area of the movie) acting is slightly wooden at times, in particular with the FBI Agents. At times it feels as though any real acting skills have been dropped simply because ‘it’s a kid’s film’ and ‘those guinea pigs will be stealing the show anyway – why try to upstage them?’ Bill Nighy probably gives the most solid performance (though when is he ever particularly crap?) despite having a role that is not featured all that heavily through the flick.

Something that often makes me judge a film is how many times I look at my watch throughout it. Well, for G-Force, I really don’t remember checking the watch at all. Which is somewhat surprising considering I left the film a bit disappointed. At times, the film lacked humour and action – which left me confused as to what the genre of the film actually was.  The acting was wooden at times, and the laughs were fairly few and far between. This is hardly a Disney classic, though was entertaining enough to sit through. It’s probably far more enjoyable for a younger audience – though Disney have managed to alienate the adult audience by failing to provide a two-toned movie like is usually on show.

6/10 – Average