Space Chimps is a fun, adventurous animated sci-fi comedy

* * * (out of 5)

Puddy from Seinfeld is fast becoming the Mel Blanc of his time. It's becoming hard to find an animated movie his voice is not in. But unlike Blanc, he never changes his voice. It is always that alpha male, aggressively confident, but less than intelligent voice that made us love him as Puddy and makes kids love him in various animated roles. Here he is again as the commanding chimp in the space program, Titan. He's not the star of the movie, but he certainly thinks he's the star of the NASA chimp squadron.

Space Chimps is a cute story that plays off the first "manned" space flight around the Earth. On January 31, 1961 a chimpanzee named Ham was secured in a Project Mercury capsule and launched into space. He died in Africa in 1983. Now in 2008, Ham III his grandson, plays off his family name to be a "human" cannonball in a sideshow circus. The chimp who still lights the fuse for him is his grandfather's old partner, Houston.

When an unmanned space probe gets caught in a wormhole, there's a possibility that it landed on a planet that might sustain life. NASA wants to send a search party after the probe to see if this is true. If there is another planet in the solar system that is habitable, we might be able to colonize it in the future, or as one NASA engineer thinks, place another NFL franchise. "Just think of the possible T-shirt sales."

For such a dangerous and unknown mission NASA doesn't want to risk human astronauts, so they tap into their reserves. A group of chimpanzees that have been training for some time. The only problem is they feel the monkeys need some kind of star power to gain the press' attention, so they turn to Ham III for assistance.

Ham III (played by SNL's and Hot Rod's Andy Samberg) is a traditional goofball in Looney Tunes fashion. At times he's pretty funny, and sometimes the jokes fall flat, but overall the movie is an enjoyable ride if you don't go in looking for Pixar-type quality. The children in the screening I was at were laughing a lot and seemed to be having fun. But one little non-chimp character might have a future ahead. Kilowatt (Kristen Chenoweth) is one of the cuter animated characters in a while.

It's a shame this movie didn't find its audience. The critics ripped it apart, but I found it just as funny as Kung Fu Panda if not as artistic.

The Freditor