Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back

Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back
Not the best way to end the Space Chimps franchise.
Genre: Comic science fiction Directed By: John H. Williams Written By/Screenplay: Rob Moreland Starring: Tom Kenny Cheryl Hines Patrick Warburton John DiMaggio Zack Shada Distributed By: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Release Date: October 5, 2010 Runtime: 76 minutes Country: United States Prequel: Space Chimps

Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back is a 2010 science fiction animated film and is the sequel to Space Chimps. It is produced by Vanguard Animation

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Plot

Cheeky chimp Comet wishes he was a fully-fledged space chimp and sneaks onto a rocket bound for the planet Maglor, but back on Earth evil alien Zartog is on the rampage and has taken over "Mission Control". With his friends, Ham, Luna, and Titan he must try to save the day.

Why It Strikes Bad Indeed

1. To get the chimps into space, despite being a 76 minute movie, the movie had a ton of filler right from the start, especially since the first 45 minutes consisted of nearly everyone either slacking off (in Comet and Killowatt’s Malgor plot line case) or goofing around (in scenes where Titan hangs upside down doing crutches and sleeping at the same time’s cases or Zartog trying to understand human culture despite knowing anything through a machine in the first movie), not to mention is that despite the title being called Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back, nearly most of the runtime involves Comet and Killowatt slacking off and touring on Malgor, and nearly none of the chimps (aside from Titan) even face up Zartog until the last 31 minutes left of the movie, making the film fell more like a complete waste of time in terms of story.
   1. Not to mention is that the Comet plot is just a lazy rehash of the main Malgor plot from the first movie, only with Comet being the only chimp to go to space after accidentally launching the rocket though voice activation and having tons of filler.
2. Just like Happily N'Ever After 2 (a sequel that Vanguard Animation wasn’t even involved unlike Space Chimps 2), the animation (while having better animation quality than that sequel which came out a year prior) is a major downgrade from the original film with dreadful physics (such as scenes where Ham and Zartog falling from the sky where the background moves or zooms in like Google maps instead of staying still) and some animation errors (especially during the Sanitor’s speech and the scene where Zartog got hit by a car), not helping is that this film was literally animated by Prana Studios, the same studio that did CGI films that came out way before this movie and looked way better than this such as the Unstable Fables trilogy, The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas short, and especially the first three Tinker Bell films from DisneyToon Studios (not to mention that the third film of the franchise came out the same year as this film which looks way better than Space Chimps 2 and that was also animated by Prana Studio).
3. Terribly distorted voice acting as if the characters sound like they’re speaking from broken microphones, especially from Ham, Zartog, and Killowatt’s replacement voice actors, Tom Kenny, John DiMaggio, and Laura Bailey, (who replaced Andy Samberg, Jeff Daniels, and Kristin Chenoweth without any explanation left behind the scenes, resulting in these three barely sound anything like their original voice actors from the first movie), Patrick Warburton, Zach Shada, and other voice actors.
4. Almost everyone were either became even worse than they were in the first movie (like Titan) or are extremely flanderized to complete morons in this sequel, A great example of character stupidity is when Comet accidentally blasts off in a rocket, making a ton of noise, and nobody (not even the scientists) notices the rocket blasting off until Houston came and check Comet's computer to see that Comet was blasting off in the rocket minutes after the rocket being blasted off.
   • Ham went from annoying, yet brave to a unfunny SpongeBob SquarePants clone without the charm that SpongeBob has with the annoying one left who, for some reason, is still a circus performer even though he's now a successful space chimp, not to mention is that his obsession with Luna has gone very unhealthy in this sequel, to the point where he has a finger key to Luna's locker room which he thankfully was kidding in front of her..
   • Luna had gone from a tolerably intelligent voice-of-reason-type female chimp who has a passion for space travel to a complete know-it-all jerk who is only there just to point out how annoying and stupid Ham and Titan are being.
   • Comet (while likeable) went from being a supporting tech wiz who knows a lot about technology and wanted to join the Space Chimps to a Gary Stu who spent the entire movie hanging out with KIlowatt on Malgor even though they never even met in the first movie, however he’s still in his intelligent self unlike almost all the other characters.
   • Titan was even worse than he was in the first movie as he’s much of a dumber and lazier idiot who is given an admittedly interesting character arc where he is recovering from PTSD, but that's ruined because when he actually sees Zartog, the whole reason he has PTSD to begin with, he gives Zartog a tour and lets him enter Mission Control Level 5 clearance where the three scientists held at, yes he really gave a tour and lets the guy that nearly got him killed in a restricted area where people held at just to get revenge on somebody, making Titan seemed to be more of a secondary antagonist who works for Zartog rather than being a Commander of the chimps.
     • Also, outside of getting called out by the chimps and Kilowatt, he didn't even get punished for nearly letting Zartog take over the space centre, making him a Karma Houdini.
   • Zartog is still a generic doomsday villain he’s usually is that doesn't feel like a threat to the space centre other than destroying someone’s car when he tries to drive it and using the device to erase the humans in the space centre and Killowatt, since all he does is trying to understand human culture even though he knows a lot about human culture through a machine from space in the first movie, making him more of a filler character who tries too hard to be a villain rather than being an actual threat.
   • The scientists were very stupider than they were in the first film as they're seen slacking off eating their ice cream sundaes in the space centre instead of noticing the rocket being blast off by Comet and never even know or hear Zartog's gibberish alien language. Heck they even think that the space centre should run by the chimps which, as pointed out by Media Hunter, is actually a stupid idea since the chimps could've mess everything in the space centre without any humans around.
   • Kilowatt (while also likeable) can get annoying at times and only serves as filler much like Comet.
   • Houston went from a wise chimp who behaves like a father figure to Ham and Comet to a bit stupid at times like where he doesn't know how to use a computer after he noticed the rocket blasting off on Comet's computer despite him using it without any issues in the first movie.
5. Poor grasp of the original film (despite having some connection to the original movie and that Vanguard Animation and some of the crew from the first movie being involved).
6. Aside from the scientists and the Senator, two of the other humans from the first movie, Dr. Smothers (aside from a belief cameo through footage from the first film) and the Ringmaster (who was replaced by Piddles the Clown), both of whom are Ham’s human allies, were disappeared completely and nowhere to be seen in this sequel.
7. Horrible soundtrack which was barely used in certain scenes of the movie and felt distorted compared to the original film.
8. Misleading Title: Despite being called "Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back", Zartog actually doesn't have that much of an impact in the story, Instead, the film seems more content with just filling the runtime with Comet and Kilowatt slacking off on Maglor, thus would have been named "Space Chimps 2: Comet's Mission on Malgor".
   • To make matters worse, the other characters award him by calling him Captain Comet when he barely does anything heroic in the entire movie other than being a filler main character. It should be Ham since he stole the machine from Zartog and erase him.
9. Surprisingly stupid ending: When Zartog (in his tiny form) went back to the front yard from the beginning, he got chased away by a dog and Ham's guinea pig while country music is playing in the background, especially compared to the original film.
10. The handheld machine that makes things disappear which the three scientists made basically looks like a Wii mote with IPod control buttons on it, which not only serves as a plot device for Zartog to use as a weapon to get revenge against the chimps and people on Earth, but also serves as product placement especially since the Nintendo Wii and Apple IPods were very popular at the time of this sequel’s release.
    1. Not to mention is that the handheld device feels more like something out of a bootleg Wii console rather than a weapon made from a space centre.
11. It ultimately killed the Space Chimps franchise as if it would have been made as a television movie instead.
12. Parts of the editing are really dreadful, to the point where one can easily tell the errors, especially the Comet and Kilowatt filler scenes were put in during scenes with the humans and Zartog in mission control.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The chimp designs are still not that bad compared to the human characters which are still awkward.
2. The Senator is the only character who's not flanderized much like the rest of the characters and is property the only likable character in this movie.
   1. Likewise, Comet and Kilowatt, despite being derailed to filler main characters who done nothing heroic other than slacking off on Malgor, are still likable and in their intelligent selves.
3. A few funny moments such as Zartog speaking alien gibberish despite taking up about 30 minutes of the movie.
4. The film's animation, despite being a massive downgrade from Prana’s previous CGI productions, somewhat had better quality than Happily N'Ever After 2.

Reception

The film was universally panned and has a critic approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also had a 2.8/10 on IMDb, which was even worse than the first movie's 4.5/10.

Jambareeqi gave this movie 1 quarter of a strawberry out of 5, claiming that this is "one of the most paper-thin films ever made", while AniMat put it as the 2nd worst animated sequel, criticizing it for its ugly style, stupid characters and most of the film's filler scenes and WatchMojo also placed it as the fourth worst animated film of all time.

The film even performed terribly at the British box office, leading to the movie being a direct-to-DVD movie in America.

However, just like the Cory in the House game, it started getting ironic positive reviews on Google, all thanks to its meme status.

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