| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for some mild action and rude humor |
| Profanity: | Some schoolyard language |
| Nudity/Sex: | Potty humor, some boy-girl flirting |
| Alcohol/Drugs: | None |
| Violence/Scariness: | Characters in peril, violence, scary dog with big teeth, scary robot, reference to parental abandonment |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Movie Release Date: | July 24, 2009 |
Top voice talent and good 3D computer graphics cannot make up for the fact that this film is utterly synthetic as well as crass, loud, and vulgar. Even at a brief running time of under 90 minutes, it overstays its welcome.
A team of super-agent guinea pigs, assisted by a reconnaissance fly and a computer whiz mole (Nicolas Cage), fail in a mission to find out what weapons-dealer-turned-consumer-electronics mogul Saber (Bill Nighy) is up to. So, over the protests of their human leader, Ben (Zach Galifianakis), the program is shut down by the FBI’s Kip Killian (Will Arnett). The guinea pigs and mole have to escape from a pet shop — and from children who abuse them — to prevent Saber’s diabolical plot from being executed.
The script is predictable and derivative. References to other movies like “Die Hard” and “Scarface” may amuse parents and potty jokes may amuse children but they contribute to a crass and lazy feel to the film. The 3D effects are mostly used to make the audience duck flying glass shards and spraying water. If they’re smart, they’ll just duck the movie.
posted July 25, 2009 at 9:41 am
A boy takes a guinea pig and puts it in his lacrosse stick, then flings the rodent across the pet store aiming for the snake cage. Then the same boy takes another guinea pig into a remote control car and rams the car with guinea pig in it into multiple obstacles until the car rams into an obstacle so hard the guinea pig is thrown out of it. There are no real consequences of these actions to the boy or the guinea pig addressed in this film and how many kids are now going to imitate what they have seen. These scenes were unnecessary to the film’s “story”. So, in addition to the movie being terrible according to two Moms and two 11 year olds, a lot of rodents are going to be hurt or killed and an important lesson that could have been taught about how to treat animals was missed.
posted July 25, 2009 at 11:15 am
Thank you for making this very important point, Wendy. The abusive treatment of the guinea pigs by both children (the sister was dressing hers up and putting nail polish on her) added injury to insult in this awful film.
posted July 30, 2009 at 10:22 pm
A waste of time for kids and adults at the matinee. Too much noise, little plot, 3-D ok and promising,the animals were clever and moved lifelike.. but the three of us left not satisfied with what we expected..”UP” was so much better..! I don’t know if the 3 of us would go see the next 3-D films coming out that we watched trailers on. We would not watch this one again. Not one tme did the audience laugh out loud..it was dead silence all the time including the bathroom jokes.. At least the B/W comedy short of the 3-Stooges in 3-D years ago..gave us satisfaction, of what we paid for. And for $7 today..wow–can I get a refund..?
posted July 30, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Thanks so much, J. Robert — I concur. I was very disappointed to see how well it did at the box office because that will only encourage them to do more like this.
posted August 3, 2009 at 11:15 am
In my own opinion,I think it is a really good movie.I like the cute rats very much.Their funny actions always make me belly laugh.But one thing I can not understand is”the main animal roles are rats why people call they”guinea pigs”?Can anyone tell me why?
posted August 3, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Hi, Moviefav! The main characters are guinea pigs. That’s why they are the G-Force. Glad you liked the movie!