G-Force
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 Guinea pigs with agent and toilet humor are a terrible combination.
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G-Force is a 2009 American family comedy spy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Written by Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley and directed by Hoyt Yeatman, the film is the directorial debut of Hoyt Yeatman, whose earlier work includes contributions in the area of visual effects. It was released in the United States on July 24, 2009. G-Force is based on a story also by Hoyt Yeatman. The film was shown in competing 3-D technologies like Dolby 3D. This is also Jerry Bruckheimer's first 3-D film. The movie stars Zach Galifianakis, Bill Nighy, and Will Arnett and it features the voices of Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz, Nicolas Cage, Steve Buscemi, and Jon Favreau.
Plot
Armed with the latest high-tech spy gear, a guinea pig named Darwin and his team of specially trained rodents are often the last line of defense against chaos and destruction. But when the government shuts them down and ships them off to a pet shop, Darwin and his gang will have to find a way to break out and prevent a mad billionaire from taking over the world.
Why It Doesn't Need Bigger Heroes
- The premise of guinea pigs working as an elite agency, while not bad, is terribly executed.
- Many scenes contain animal abuse, like a young girl dressing up Juarez. Seriously, animal abuse is never a good idea to begin with and we do know that it sucks, so moving on.
- Annoying and unlikeable characters, especially Hurley, voice by Jon Favreau, who seem to have no indoor voice.
- The acting is badly-done and hammy, particularly from Will Arnett.
- False advertising: The trailers and marketing of G-Force advertised Leonard Saber as the main antagonist. However, since Speckles was the real villain of the film, he had bigger plans than Leonard Saber, as he wanted to get revenge on human beings for killing his family (see pointer 7). Despite this, the trailers had several factors that showed Leonard Saber as the possible villain.
- In the first trailer of G-Force, Saber is shown in his room, saying "our time has arrived" and the next scene shows Ben Kendall informing Darwin that his mission is to stop Saber as he has built a "mechanized army that threatens the entire free world", which indicates the household appliances that turned into killing machines.
- The second trailer of G-Force shows Leonard Saber saying "are we ready" and "it's not easy to take over the world", indicating that he was going to the bad guy.
- Bad CGI especially on the guinea pigs. It looks almost as bad as Kangaroo Jack, which was produced by the same company, Jerry Bruckheimer Films. In addition, the guinea pigs look more like hamsters than guinea pigs (Only hamsters are thin like that; guinea pigs are more plump).
- A massive "jump-the-shark" moment where we find out that Speckles turns out to have been evil all along, only to reform at the end of the climax.
- The scene where in the pet shop shows a teen throws Hurley into a cage next to a snake's cage can be frightening for a kids movie. Same can also be said for when Speckles was seemingly crushed by a garbage truck although it was later subverted when it was revealed that he actually faked his own death.
- The humor in this movie mostly consists of toilet humor and fart jokes; the most notable example is during the police car pursuit; Hurley farts in Rapid Deployment Vehicle (dubbed the RDV by Darwin).
- Excessive amount of product placement; such as Dance Dance Revolution, Dominos, Pepsi and Facebook.
- Plot hole: It is made very clear around halfway through the movie that they left all the equipment (including the language decoders) at the lab which is being put under security. Ben later on finds Darwin and Hurley outside and when he brings them in they have the language decoders (It is not beyond reason to suppose that Ben made spares which he kept elsewhere).
- Most of the supporting characters, such as Ben and Kip, are pointless.
- Tracy Morgan's voice for the three mice is pointless and very annoying.
- The secondary antagonist, Leonard Saber, played by Bill Nighy, is pretty lame and generic.
- Most of the special effects are poor and lame, such as the explosion effects.
- Mooch (the fly character) is a dumb and pointless character and does almost nothing throughout the movie.
- Overall, it is just Disney's outright equivalent to both of the live-action Smurfs movies and the 2007 version of Alvin and the Chipmunks, and it is so obnoxiously loud.
- Some inaccuracy regarding the characters' species. For example, Speckles the mole is sometimes referred to by the characters as a rodent, even though he is a star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) from the Talpidae family in the order Soricomorpha. A rodent, by definition, is a creature from the order Rodentia.
Redeeming Qualities
- Decent soundtrack from Trevor Rabin.
- At least, its plot wasn't rehashed from other spy movies.
- Good voice acting for the CGI animals, such as Sam Rockwell as Darwin.
- The action is manic and pretty amazing.
- The scene with the RC Cars is very fast paced and entertaining.
- The concept had potential.
- The song "Jump" by Flo Rida is pretty catchy.
- At least the CGI characters don't look that unsettling, unlike the film adaptation of Cats.
- The designs of the killing machines are well made.
Reception
G-Force got mostly negative reviews. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 22% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 4.43/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "G-Force features manic action, but fails to come up with interesting characters or an inspired plot.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews", but for some reason, it did perform well at the box office, earned $292.8 million on a $150 million budget.