DVD Review: G-Force (Three-Disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo +Digital Copy)

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A couple weeks ago I saw a really cool horror flick called Trick 'r Treat. This review is NOT about that movie. I wanted to review it, but was just so busy I was never able to get around to it and then I was sent this movie, G-Force, specifically to review as well as Lost Season 5, and I still don't have much free time so it looks like I'm going to have to skip the Trick 'r Treat review. So let me just say that if you're a horror fan, definitely check out Trick 'r Treat. Okay, now this film is called G-Force, which is an unfortunate title because it has nothing to do with the anime G-Force series. Nope, this one is about an elite tactical squad of talking rodents (with a few insects thrown in).

Okay, that sounds like it could have been a fun premise for a movie, but unfortunately this wasn't a fun movie. It had very little comedy, or at least very little comedy that actually worked, which is strange because the film is filled with comedians such as Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett, and Tracy Morgan. And what's weird is that Zach Galifianakis plays the straight man here, never given one funny thing to say throughout the entire film. Why'd they bother casting a comedian in a role with hardly a thing to contribute?

The lack of comedy doesn't necessarily make this a bad movie, I mean this is also supposed to be an action film about an elite tactical squad attempting to save the world. What makes it bad is the lack of comedy combined with a dull story that really doesn't get the view emotionally invested in the plot and then action sequences where pretty much anything can happen so there's no sense of tension. I actually fell asleep during this movie the first time I watched it, which very rarely happens. Then upon second viewing I started feeling like I wanted to doze off again and had to find something to do on the laptop to keep my mind active.

The story goes like this, a dude, Ben, is about to lose funding for his project of turning Guinea Pigs into elite tactical spies that can talk so to prove their worth the Guineas he sends his team in to some super-rich mega-important electronics mongol who has been under FBI investigation for several years. Once inside, they find data indicating that something serious bad is going to be launched in 29 hours. However, when Ben has his team try to show this data that they stole to is boss, all that displays is some plans for some fancy coffeemaker. His boss is ticked that not only did they perform an illegal unauthorized mission, but that the data obtained from said mission was worthless, so he orders the project closed and the animals be killed.

Um, WTF?! I can understand doing something, like maybe reassigning Ben to another department and having someone else take over, but shutting it down completely and killing rodents that are highly trained and highly skilled, not to mention CAN TALK! You could make millions off the technology alone that allows language communication between animals, not to mention being able to train them to do complex tasks. There are obviously huge benefits and opportunities here and he's just going to destroy these miracle breakthroughs that could change the world as we know it because he is a little angry?!

At any rate, the rodents escape only to wind up in a pet store where they meet another Guinea Pig named Hurley, a hamster named Bucky, and three cute mice. The plan they come up with to escape is to act cute so that they get adopted. And it sort of works as two of them are adopted quickly by a couple of kids, a brother and sister. Unfortunately, the kids have terrible parents which we only know because we see the boy is fond of torturing and killing animals while the girl is fond of torturing in a different way... by putting makeup and doll clothes on her's. These kids are definitely not the product of a good home environment but the film does very little to demonstrate how bad this actually is. Nope, and they actually try to make it seem funny, which is just terrible.

The mole's plan to escape differs from the others since there is no way he can act "cute", but his attempt ends in supposed disaster when he plays dead and is thrown into a garbage truck and supposedly crushed to death. Well there's a laugh riot for the kiddies. But of course anyone over the age of ten knows that he's not dead and will show up again later. The rest of the group escapes when they find out that the hamster has a secret trap door he uses to sneak out and steal food. This movie just loves stealing for some reason.

Blah, blah, blah, the entire team rendezvous back with Ben, then Ben for some completely inexplicable reason drops some pointless knowledge on them which gets everybody depressed, though they all cheer up less than a minute later when Hurley gives a rather weak motivational speach... this entire scene just falls completely flat and is absolutely pointless. I know the filmmakers were trying to jerk some emotions around, but they failed miserably. The movie wasn't very good up until this point, but here's where both my wife realized just how bad it actually was.

Okay, so maybe young kids will enjoy it, but still there are much better movies and TV shows out there for kids that I would choose long before this one. Now on to the extra features. They sent me the three disc Blu-ray/DVD combination, but I don't have a Blu-ray player and the third disc is nothing more than a digital copy so all I can really review is the single DVD disc, which contains a handful of extras:

• Audio Commentary
• Blaster's Boot Camp - 4 and 1/2 minutes and yet still contains even less actual content than you might expect, basically just covers some of the gear the G-Force team uses
• G-Force Mastermind - How the story came into being, which is kind of interesting. Also pretty short at about 4 minutes.
• G-Farce: Bloopers - Live action bloopers, not the fake animated bloopers, which is unfortunate because those probably would have been way funnier.
• Deleted Scenes - 6 deleted scenes, overall good call for these, though I think the 5th could have been left in there
• Music Videos - 3 music videos: "Jump" by Flo Reda featuring Nelly Furtado, "Ready to Rock" by Steve Rushton, and "Go G-Force" by I don't know who because they don't seem to list it anywhere

G-Force (Three-Disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo +Digital Copy), released by Disney, is available starting December 15, 2009. Check out the official website.