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Going ape: 'Space Chimps'

A critic recently wrote this opening paragraph, and I paraphrase: If you can read this sentence, you're too old for Space Chimps. Well, I can read and I had a great time at Space Chimps, as did Little Miss Welcome To L.A. and plenty of parents and kiddies at the sold-out screening I attended (take that, Caped Crusader!).

Sure, it's no Wall-E or Cars, and points should be deducted for sending the astro-chimps to a Day-Glo planet that looks like a rejected background from a Teletubbies meets The Care Bears video. In fact, I'd bet it's the relative cheapness of the animation that bothered some critics, who clearly don't spend a lot of time watching Cartoon Network and Boomerang or they'd realize that 4-to-6-year-old-kids don't compare notes on animation styles, they're just looking for a fun story with some laughs.

Space Chimps delivers. Especially if you like bad chimp puns such as "the primate directive" and "Let's chimp this ride!" and, really, if you don't like bad chimp puns, you're just no fun. Honestly, what kind of killjoy doesn't like a bad chimp pun?

The movie also features some interesting voice talent, such as the always dependable Patrick Warburton as the gruff, clueless chimp astronaut commander with that yen for puns and a funny Jeff Daniels as the bad slavedriver of the alien planet (to be honest, I've forgotten what he's called, but he looks like that crud monster in Dogma tricked out in popsicle colors. That sounds worse than it looks.) Cheryl Hines voices the smart female chimp astronaut/love interest, and yes, she will remind you of the smart female ape/love interest in Planet Of The Apes. There is also an adorable little creature that looks like Tweety Bird with a giant glowing head. (And it's voiced by the little, adorable Kristen Chenoweth).

True, there is the usual (WARNING: LESSON ALERT!) backstory of the son of the first chimp astronaut, who has been reduced to performing in a third-rate circus. But he finally does his father proud when he is added to the chimp-only space crew (for public relations purposes only) and saves the day when they hit outer space to see if there is dangerous life on a distant planet. And he learns, well, you can figure out what he learns, and of course, the chimps teach the humans, too, and yada, yada, yada.

The film has its bounty of cliches, such as stale pocket protector jokes for a nerdy trio of NASA engineers. But the movie is full of movie references that I found mildly enjoyable, even as they went over the head of my daughter. For example, Daniels' baddie is enslaving his fellow aliens in a freezing process like the carbonite that sealed up Han Solo in the second Star Wars movie. There are a couple of Star Wars in-jokes here. And a 2001 visual reference. And the young chimp who's kicked off the space mission is sort of the Gary Sinise of simians (for you Apollo 13 fans.)

OK, so there's nothing terribly original in Space Chimps. But it tells a entertaining little story in about 90 minutes with kicky verve, and a good sitcom's serving of one-liners. And let's praise whoever came up with this title. Many movie titles don't have the chutzpah to sum up the entire movie in a title. But say Space Chimps and you know exactly what the movie is about. I like that.

Space Chimps is the best kindergarten-age kids' movie of its sort since Curious George and the unfairly maligned Bee Movie.