HOUSEFLIES GET A BUZZ, BUT YOU PROBABLY WON'T.Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic You had a problem with an animated movie about a rat cooking in a kitchen? Then you'd best steer clear of "Fly Me to the Moon," a 3-D cartoon featuring three "cute" little flies joining the Apollo 11 crew for the first lunar landing. It's an utterly bizarre idea for a movie, probably one that only the gang at Pixar could pull off. What's here is a stiffly animated feature with a sensibility and humor that's straight out of a '60s sitcom, as if the filmmakers had watched a "Courtship of Eddie's Father" (or maybe late-period "My Three Sons") marathon before making the movie. Housefly housefly, common name of the fly Musca domestica, found in most parts of the world. The housefly, a scavenger, does not bite living animals but is dangerous because it carries bacteria and protozoans that cause many serious diseases, e.g. Nat (voiced by Trevor Gagnon) has spent his life listening to his grandpa (Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is a three-time Emmy Award-winning American character actor. in full "Doc" Brown mode) speaking of his life of adventure. (Grandpa helped Amelia Earhart on her solo flight Solo Flight was a flight simulator game for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit microcomputers, released in 1983. It was later released for the IBM PC. The game was created by noted game designer Sid Meier, and published by MicroProse Software, Inc. across the Atlantic by buzzing up her nose.) Nat longs for excitement, too, but his mom (Kelly Ripa Kelly Maria Ripa (born October 2, 1970, in Berlin, New Jersey) an American Daytime Emmy Award-winning actress, television personality and talk show host. Since February 2001, she has served as the co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly ) cautions: "Dreamers always get swatted." Well ... yes. They're flies. Nevertheless, Nat and his nerd friends IQ (Philip Daniel Bolden) and the chunky Scooter (David Gore) decide they want to be "astro-nuts" and hitch a ride with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Along the way, they help repair a system short and enjoy a zero-gravity moment set to Strauss' "Blue Danube." (Less a reference to "2001" than "The Simpsons" episode where Homer eats potato chips.) There's also a strange, underdeveloped subplot sub·plot n. 1. A plot subordinate to the main plot of a literary work or film. Also called counterplot, underplot. 2. A subdivision of a plot of land, especially a plot used for experimental purposes. involving some commie com·mie also Com·mie n. Informal A Communist. [Short for Communist.] commie Noun pl -mies Adjective spy flies who speak in thick Ruskie accents and could be seen as something of a nod to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" if they were actually funny. What humor there is in this gentle, bland movie usually comes from puns with the dung-loving Scooter bemoaning his "meatball-ism" and plenty of "Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies showing man’s consciousness and fear of dying. [Br. Lit.: Lord of the Flies] See : Death " references. And lest anyone watching be confused by the story, the actual Buzz Aldrin appears at the end of the film just to let everyone know that no actual flies really stowed away aboard Apollo 11. Given that Aldrin aldrin (ôl`drĭn): see insecticides. once famously punched a guy for saying the moon landing was a hoax, I'm not going to argue with the guy. Glenn Whipp, (818) 713-3672 glenn.whipp@dailynews.com FLY ME TO THE MOON - Two stars >G >Starring: Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Ripa, Buzz Aldrin. >Director: Ben Stassen. >Running time: 1 hr. 29 min. >Playing: Area wide. >In a nutshell: Debatably cute houseflies stow away aboard Apollo 11 in a movie whose sensibility feels straight out of the lunar landing era. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Young houseflies are launched into an out-of-this world adventure with the crew of Apollo 11 in "Fly Me to the Moon." |
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