By popular demand, it's Mars Needs Moms!
Yeah, sorry it took so long to get to these.
We've kinda been busy with a few other things,
but here I am and I finally saw one of Disney's biggest disappointments.
The critical and box-office flop that actually destroyed Robert Zemeckis' motion capture company.
Yep! Remember Polar Express, Beowulf, Christmas Carol?
You're gonna see nothing like that anymore because this is the film that killed it.
Some would say that's a shame, others would say "Thank God!"
because if they kept turning out films like this...
... Yeah. It's not a big loss.
The film is about a little boy who's having trouble getting along with his mother,
only to discover she's being kidnapped by aliens and he follows along.
They're taken to a planet that's ruled by females
who have absolutely no idea how to take care of children.
Huh... Then how did they survive all these years...
Okay, we'll get to all that.
The boy comes across another guy who was taken hostage long ago,
and while he doesn't like what they do
He just sorta learns to accept it because he has no other choice.
But the boy says he does have a choice and thus the two of them,
as well as an alien graffiti artist,
decide to change how Mars works,
fight the evil, repressive system,
and stop all the mothers from being destroyed.
Oh yeah. When a mother's out use their usefulness,
they just blow 'em up.
And that gets to, kinda, the major problem of this movie.
Okay, I know they always say, "Don't judge a movie by it's title",
But the title of this movie is, "Mars Needs Moms".
Okay, it's stupid, it's one of the worst titles for a movie ever,
but at least when you hear it, you get an idea of what you're going to get.
Something playful, something goofy and colorful, kinda lighthearted.
But no. This is a really dark, miserable looking, even intense film!
There's a scene where one of the characters talks about about seeing his mother
actually get destroyed! Right in front of his eyes!
And it's told really slowly, and really dramatically
and all I can think to myself is...
*Mockingly* MARS NEEDS MOMS!
But that wouldn't really matter if the film was say, creative or charming or imaginative,
and it's surprisingly not.
I know the idea of this world is that it's suppose to be repressive and there isn't any color,
but come on. Even for a repressive world, we've seen this a million times.
It looks like Tron. It looks like 1984. It looks like The Matrix.
It looks like all these movies we've seen with miserable worlds a bajillion times,
and it's just not interesting anymore.
I guess the idea of a race run by females
and all the males are just kinda left in the garbage is kind of interesting,
but even then, I'm not sure what kind of commentary they're trying to get across. If any!
Is this like a "Wicker Man" remake?
Is women taking over a good thing or a bad thing?
Or is it suppose to show ironically how, like how men treat women
or women treat men? I don't know!
Maybe there is no commentary. Maybe it's just the way this planet does things
and they just need an enemy to go after.
And that's exactly what this film feels like.
It feels like everything is there just so it can kind of be there.
A kid travels to Mars because,
kids wanna travel to Mars!
They fight oppressive systems because
kids like fighting oppressive systems!
(Hey, look how much they argue with their parents)
We're gonna motion capture Seth Green as the little kid
even though he doesn't do any of the voice because...
We just kinda motion capture celebrities for some reason.
At least with Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey, they were in the movie; they got to use their voices
But Seth Green? I mean, he's a fine actor, but
did you absolutely "need" this guy in this role?
I can tell you that his addition doesn't add anything, nor any of the characters.
Joan Cusack! She's one of my favorite actresses!
She is so funny and so entertaining yet,
she's just there to kinda, be there.
For a film about a kid who wants to go save his mother,
they don't make this mother interesting at all.
And it's such a shame to hear someone I know is so uniquely fun
like Joan Cusack, just given nothing to work with.
So I guess if you're just in a mood to say,
"Fight the power and the repressive... Whatevers"
as hey, those films do well sometimes
This one definitely doesn't make any sense but,
I guess if you just wanna get that rebellious emotion out of your system?
But aside from that, I have no idea who would enjoy this film.
It's not the worst, it's just dull.
And when it's not dull, it's kind of unpleasant.
And for movie called *mockingly* "Mars Needs Moms",
you wouldn't expect something so grim and depressing.
In terms of at least seeing a yearly film with
motion capture that's gonna look like a really high budget production,
they're pretty much extinct now.
Again, it's hard to say this is a good thing or a bad thing,
but if they're anything like this film, I can say we definitely traded up.