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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Sandie Angulo Chen

The nation's space program is in jeopardy after an expensive rover unexpectedly goes off-course through a worm-hole too dangerous for astronauts to navigate. Mission control concocts a last-ditch plan to send chimps on the retrieval mission. Since the first chimp in space, Ham, is long dead, the powers that be select his grandson, wise-cracking circus performer Ham III (voiced by Andy Samberg) to join trained chimp crew members Titan (Patrick Warburton) and Luna (Cheryl Hines). Things get a bit tricky when they eventually find the rover on a pastel-colored planet where a tyrant named Zartog (Jeff Daniels) is using it to enslave his fellow aliens.

Is It Any Good?

3

With Pixar creating thoughtful, memorable animated films like WALL-E that even childless adults love, it's hard for a regular old cartoon comedy to compete. But once your initial surprise at the Care Bears-level animation wears off, you may find that it's easy to enjoy SPACE CHIMPS' silly jokes. The references to The Right Stuff, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Apollo 13 are obvious but still clever.

Bottom line? The combination of space exploration and talking animals should make this appealing for the 7-and-under set. Not every animated movie has to be a sophisticated masterpiece, and sometimes a goofball chimp and his buddies are good for laughs.

Watch Our Video Review Good choice for kids

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