Day 15 - G-Force (2009)

So, it's noon and I've just about put the trauma of the Green Lantern behind me. One point in its favour - it's been a remarkably easy film to repress. Today, though, I knew I needed a guaranteed sugar high, something light and fluffy and guaranteed not to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I've actually seen G-Force a couple of times, because over a Bank Holiday weekend I'll watch anything rather than strain myself reaching for the remote. The first time was by accident; it was mid-afternoon and I caught the end whilst waiting for the news. The second time, it was the best of a bad bunch and less insufferably twee than Radio 4 tends to be in the daytime.

You don't really need to know much more about the film than that it's about a bunch of specially-trained guinea pig secret agents. That's the original concept, and that's what you get - all talking rodents, all the 88-minute running time. It's Babe, basically, except that insead of leaving you craving a bacon sandwich it'll make you fancy a Peruvian takeaway instead.

The good

The voice cast on this one is absolutely stellar, including Nic Cage, Penelope Cruz and Sam Rockwell. Steve Buscemi in particular shines in the role he was born to play as a hamster with anger management issues. The humans aren't neglected, either, with Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett and Bill Nighy in key roles. Everybody seems to be having a good time, most especially Jon Favreau as the chubby, schlubby pet-shop guinea pig who gets inadvertently dragged along for the ride.

The talking animal effects are actually genuinely impressive, only occasionally looking fake during the facial closeups. Kudos, too, to the CGI team for creating the cutest cockroaches I ever saw. Action scenes, meanwhile, remain resolutely coherent, preventing the film from turning into a kiddie version of Transformers.

The bad

It's a shame that an otherwise-blameless film should contain such blatant racial stereotyping - the feisty Latina girl, for instance, or the comedy African American sidekick, whose guinea pig form was indeed black. It's lazy, it's embarrassing and it makes me feel just a tiny bit guilty for watching.

While I enjoyed the chorus of mice, it's been done elsewhere before and so much better, although that isn't so much a critique as an excuse to post links to clips.

The verdict

It's not Citizen Kane. It probably isn't even Citizen Toxie. It may, however, just possibly, be the Avengers Assemble of talking rodent movies.