Versatility and originality are two things with which Jerry Bruckheimer isn't often credited. The mega-producer's filmography is heavy on sequels and derivative works, especially in the past 15 years he's spent almost exclusively at the Walt Disney Company.
But, in 2009, as franchises continued to dominate the box office, Bruckheimer actually released two very different non-sequels, neither of which comfortably fit into the high-octane spectacle genre he usually calls home. First came Confessions of a Shopaholic, a small chick-lit-adapted Touchstone chick flick that garnered little notice. Then summer brought G-Force, a bigger film with some of the year's smallest stars.
G-Force centers on a team of four highly-trained, high-tech commandoes working for the United States government. There is Darwin the brave leader (Sam Rockwell), Blaster the wisecracking goofball (Tracy Morgan), Juarez the feisty Latina (Penelope Cruz), and goggled tech guy Speckles (Nicolas Cage). Oh, did I mention that they're guinea pigs? They all are, except for Speckles, who's a mole! The talking critters are part of an experimental animal communication unit headed by a nice scientist named Ben Kendall (Zach Galifianakis).
When the film opens, the rodents, mammal, and their ally Mooch the fly (Dee Bradley Baker) are hard and stealthily at work to uncover the secret plans of rich, influential entrepreneur Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy). To an excited audience, Saber announces that all of the company's existing household appliances have been covertly fitted with computer chips. When activated, the devices will be able to connect, communicate, and revolutionize the way we live.
Casually adopting the name G-Force, the tiny spies try to steal Saber's encrypted data and assess the true threat of the unmanned weapons initiative that's apparently only posing as a commercial enterprise. Doing so without a warrant and proper authorization, however, the guinea pigs invite heat on Ben's department from the FBI, particularly skeptical special agent Kip Killian (Will Arnett).
On the run from the law, the fearless foursome winds up in a Los Angeles pet shop. There, they encounter boorish guinea pig Hurley (Jon Favreau), who haphazardly becomes a part of the mission. The gang is divided when Blaster and Juarez are purchased by a couple of unthoughtful kids. Can they reunite, ward off the feds, and prevent the impending Clusterstorm launch that just might bring global extermination? For the answers to these questions, you'll have to see this movie.
Though marketed partly as a comedy, G-Force is as packed with action as just about any Jerry Bruckheimer film. Chases, gadgetry, and explosions are all supplied in abundance. In assuming the perspective of computer-animated rodents, the humor skews younger, the action tamer, and the colors more natural. But this isn't otherwise a far cry from the Bruckheimer oeuvre, delivering fast pacing, visceral emphasis, and snuck-in character development. Were our leads humans instead of animals, this may have qualified as competent popcorn entertainment. That they're not applies a thick coat of stupidity to the proceedings, one that teens and adults are much more likely to mind than the kids primarily targeted.
The movie plays out fairly seriously, finding more time for peril and suspense than lingering on the goofy driving conceit. One obvious drawback lays in the design; as commercials enforced, G-Force was tailor-made for 3-D theatrical exhibition, Disney/Bruckheimer's amusing first live-actionish selection for such treatment. Watching it on DVD, viewers will notice the ongoing obsession with objects moving towards them. However, with no 3-D option offered, they'll miss the payoff, which must have been significant (at least in theory) based on the way the film serves up such illusions with nearly the regularity of gimmick-based theme park attractions like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Muppet*Vision 3D. That technique will limit the movie's value long after the industry's current 3-D fascination wears off, even if TV technology can recreate the polarized theatrical experience and consumers genuinely care.
Beyond that, G-Force plays out about as predictably and comfortably as any big commercial family film. There are a slew of one-liners for kids ("Poop in his hand! Poop in his hand!") and adults ("Yippie-ki-yay, coffeemaker!") alike. There are brief snippets of songs in today's pop electronic hip-hop stylings clearly selected for the mutually beneficial exposure of music videos (surprisingly, a soundtrack wasn't even made to download).
The live actors -- hip comedians like Galifianakis, Arnett, Nighy, and Loudon Wainwright III -- are merely there to attract fans who would otherwise stay far away. It may be excessive to consider such performers neutered here, but they aren't even asked to be funny. Galifianakis, the most entertaining thing about one of the year's most entertaining movies (The Hangover), manages to mildly amuse in one throwaway gag. He's more readily utilized to elicit sympathy and decency as the chubby hero who believes in the chatty creatures.
G-Force marks the feature directorial debut of veteran visual effects artist Hoyt H. Yeatman, Jr., who also receives story credit with fellow effects man David P.I. James. (Husband-wife National Treasure scribes Cormac and Marianne Wibberley are billed for the screenplay.) It's an inauspicious first for Yeatman, who won an Oscar for his work on James Cameron's The Abyss and has supervised VFX on a number of Bruckheimer's adult-oriented action flicks. Disney fans might be interested to know that the company bought Yeatman's effects house Dream Quest in the mid-1990s and turned it into The Secret Lab, the ambitious unit that worked on Dinosaur and was closed two years later. With the dream of a Disney visual effects company never again realized, the fine character animation on G-Force is the work of Sony Pictures Imageworks.
With a domestic gross of nearly $120 million and an over-$200 M worldwide tally, G-Force would appear to be one of Disney's bigger hits of all-time. In fact, though, those numbers only narrowly cleared the film's $150 M production budget and no doubt kept the film in deficit when the hefty marketing costs are considered. (By comparison, Alvin and the Chipmunks cost less than half and earned nearly double.) Based on those results, I would guess there is as much chance of a G-Force sequel as there is of Touchstone making more Shopaholic movies.
But don't worry about Bruckheimer or Disney's faith in him. There's sequel potential in each of next summer's live-action tentpoles (especially Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), a third National Treasure and fourth Pirates of the Caribbean adventure are planned for 2011, and beyond that, there is The Lone Ranger to star Johnny Depp as Tonto.
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