Academic

OK, so here's the bottom line: G-Force is really a lot better than you would think, particularly because the premise rests on an experimental squad of guinea pig spies.

I took four children, ages 7 through 12, to see this movie yesterday, and no one left disappointed.  No one asked to go to the restroom, and I couldn't get anyone to get my (free) refill for my popcorn.  I have to admit I was skeptical -- I sit through a lot of movies where the stars are talking animals, animated, computer-generated, live or otherwise, and I have pretty low expectations because of my experience.  The worst ones mix talking animals with humans in live-action, like this one.  But yet, this movie was pretty good.

Two things separate it from the (talking animal) pack.  First, Jerry Bruckheimer.  Two words:  special effects.  The ending is really cool.  Second, the ending was actually unpredictable.  (Well, it wasn't predicted by me, or any of my tweener friends.)  We talked about that the whole way home.  That usually doesn't happen in kids' movies.  Unlike many kids' movies these days, there wasn't a lot of over-kids-heads double entendre, not too many scatalogical jokes, and a fairly ending.  That gives it at least 3 stars, right?  And it has that funny guy from Love, Actually that played the aging rock star.  I really liked him.  And this young guy that looks like a heavier Richard Dreyfus.  And some blond girl that was thrown in for no reason.

OK, so the plot centers around a  company that's a cross between Microsoft and GE that has been secretly putting computer chips into all of its consumer appliances for years, creating a strange network that could be used for good (telling your computer to make a grocery list because you're out of coffee) or not so good (global annihilation).  Guess who has to stop this?  The guinea pigs.  And it's pretty entertaining.