G-Force (2009)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on August 1, 2009 @ tonymacklin.net.

G-Force stands for Gross-Force.

The first gross is the money G-Force has made. When it was released, it went to #1 at the box office, knocking off Harry Potter.

G-Force is a whirlwind movie for family audiences, and a whirlwind cash machine for the studio.

The second gross is, of course, bathroom humor. Potty humor replaced Potter.

In 1968 in his book The Disney Version, Richard Schickel wrote about Walt Disney's anal fixation in his movies.

Since Walt Disney Pictures distributed and produced G-Force -- along with Jerry Bruckheimer -- Walt is spinning happily on his bidet.

G-Force is the best bottom-fixation movie of the year. Quote that, Disney Pictures!

G-Force has a line that may go down in movie history, along with "Here's looking at you, kid," and "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

To join them is the immortal line that the mice cry in G-Force -- "Poop in his hand."

Others are: "Darwin, your butt's on fire," "I just saved your classy behind," "Where's the bathroom?" "This morning it's the sports page," "I'm chasing my butt, "Hurley, Get your butt out of my face," and on and on.

The last shot of the movie is the rear of a dancing rodent.

Along with the bottoms-up theme, G-Force is about a unit of guinea pigs that is out to save the world from global extermination.

The cast is impressive. The villain Saber is portrayed by Bill Nighy -- one of my favorite actors. But this time out, Nighy is outacted by guinea pigs.

Nighy can be a terrific actor, but he's also willing to go with the flow. Nighy surely knows how to get into money-making movies -- he was in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the Underworld series.

The voices for the G-Force are Nicolas Cage (the mole named Spreckels), Sam Rockwell (Darwin), Tracy Morgan (Blaster), and Penelope Cruz (Juarez).

They are joined in their vocal exploits by Jon Favreau (Hurley) and the irrepressible Steve Buscemi (Bucky).

That's a talented bunch of voices.

Zach Galifianakis portrays Ben, the human leader of the intrepid band.

G-Force is directed by Hoyt Yeatman, who also voices one of the giddy mice. His previous direction was a 4-minute short in 1994, Asteroid Adventure.

He keeps the action moving.

The script was assembled by six writers, led by the Wibberleys (Cormac and Marianne).

What G-Force lacks most is personality; the different rodents could use more definition. They're pretty one-dimensional -- e.g., Juarez is a flirt.

But they're active furballs -- which should be enough for kids.

When I review movies, I ask myself two questions. First, "does the movie do what it set out to do?" G-Force set out to be an entertaining family movie that makes money On that basis, G-Force succeeds.

The second question I ask is "Was what it set out to be, worth doing the way they did it?" With G-Force, most critics say no; many audiences say yes. Their bottoms were in the seats.

G-Force didn't offend the critic in me. It appealed to the 8-year old in me who likes furballs.

At the end of the movie I attended, a little girl's voice piped up, and said to the screen, "Thank you big tv."

I'm not about to argue with her.