BEFORE: Not much progress was made during July, thanks to the addition of 19 James Bond films to my list, plus taking a week off for Comic-Con. Now that August is here, I'm hoping to reduce the size of my list, it's really my best chance while the Olympics are on, and most channels have given up and are not premiering too many new movies.
I was tempted to watch "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" next, since it's another sci-fi film set in San Francisco, but I'm going to stick with the alien abduction theme. Here's the rough plan for the month: films about Mars, followed by some mind-f*ck films and questions about the existential nature of things, which leads nicely into films about god and the devil (not necessarily in that order), which leads into back-to-school week, which will lead into colonial times and the Old West - THEN I can begin the world tour. Don't worry, the transitions will all make sense when we get there.
Linking from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", Jeff Goldblum was also in a film called "Nine Months" with Joan Cusack (last seen in "Friends With Money"), who plays the Mom in the title of tonight's film.
THE PLOT: A young boy named Milo gains a deeper appreciation for his mom after Martians come to Earth to take her away.
AFTER: I know it's a movie for kids, but did the Martians all have to act so stupid? And sound so much like old Chinese ladies? These characters made Jar Jar Binks look like Laurence Olivier!
They're so dumb ("How dumb are they?") that they've been manipulated into discarding half the born babies into the trash-pile - the boys, not the girls, because that would be too much like China... The females, of course, are needed to run Martian society, while the men dance around in the trash like morons (who wrote this? I'm guessing a woman...) but the women are no better, because none of them will stand up to their feminazi leaders and say that something is wrongs. So Martian men are idiots, and Martian women are submissive - there's a great message for the kids.
They need Moms, or more accurately, A Mom, to program their nannybots based on the parenting skills locked in her cranium. So, if their society is so dumb that they don't know how to raise their own kids, how did they invent hyperdrive space travel?
The bigger problem here is that the movie is way too full of itself, it takes itself too seriously, when a ride to another planet where an advanced civilization lives should be FUN. And this isn't, it's too frantic, too panicky, and everything is an emergency. "Oh, my GOD! We have to save her right NOW!" Umm, no you don't, because the Martians hooked her up to a device that takes a full 6 hours to power up properly, so you could probably walk there backwards and save her. Somewhere James Bond (or his screenwriter) is watching this supposed deathtrap and saying, "Seriously?"
Every silly line or almost-joke is treated like comedy gold, which it isn't, and every little plot point is treated like a genius idea, which it isn't. I haven't seen those awful talking-puppy films like "Space Buddies", but this is what I imagine they're like.
NITPICK POINT: Which is correct: the Martians are constantly monitoring us through satellite images, or they can only pick up our television transmissions every 25 years? At some point, a writer has to make a choice. Pick a horse and run with it.
Also starring (CGI versions of) Seth Green (last seen in "The Italian Job"), Dan Fogler (last seen in "Fanboys"), Mindy Sterling (last seen in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"), Tom Everett Scott (last seen in "An American Werewolf in Paris"), Elisabeth Harnois.
RATING: 3 out of 10 space helmets
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