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Saturday 10 March 2012

G-Force (2009)

basics...
From the sublime Inside Men to the ridiculous G-Force... A Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer production that sees Zach Galifianakis (wow, spelled that right on my first guess!) as an FBI bod in charge of a crack squad of talking guinea pigs, who are out to prove their worth by investigating Bill Nighy's tech-mogul's plot to take over the world. Or something.

brilliant...
G-Force has a good set up and delivers a lot of wham-bam special effects, chase sequences and flashy CGI that would no doubt keep kids entertained for hours. There are also quite a few references to more adult films that are enjoyable and helped to keep my attention away from the films flaws. I particularly liked the line 'Yippee-ki-ay coffee maker!', a Die Hard reference that none of the film's target audience should know.

but...
The sad thing about G-Force is that it never really lives up to the fun-sounding premise that guinea pig spies might suggest. There's not enough fun to be had with the fact that these are guinea pigs! The film takes itself a tad too seriously - Galifianakis is basically a straight man to some ok-CGI lumps of fluff with impressive voices (Nic Cage, Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Penélope Cruz, Steve Buscemi and Tracy Morgan) but a weak script, by something called 'The Wibberleys'. That credit explained a lot... The plot - the mole is actually a mole in the ranks and plans to wipe out humanity through killer kitchen utensils - is silly and there are plot holes and contrivances galore. It seems churlish to say that about what is clearly a kids movie, but there should be so much more to this thing that special effects, shouldn't there? I don't think it's a big ask for a tighter script and less clunking scenes like the one in which Galifianakis suddenly decides to tell the little spies he got them from a pet shop

briefly...
G-Force left me annoyed at the squandered potential that a film featuring spy-fi rodents and this cast might imply.

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