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You’ll want to stay through the closing credits of this new motion-capture animated adventure from the people who gave us “The Polar Express.” There are four minutes of clips of the real-live cast wearing the mo-cap suits, dots covering their faces so the sensors can digitally mimic their movements, actions and facial reactions as they act out what’s going to be animated.
It’s fascinating and the lightest and funniest part of this film, based on a novel by “Bloom County” creator Berkeley Breathed. Though light enough in tone, packed with good messages and delivering a couple of lovely, touching moments, “Mars” still has that plastic look.
Cute characters and a “Star Wars” derived plot — rescuing a damsel from a heavily garrisoned “citadel” — drive this tale, a movie more interested in action than big laughs.
Milo (voiced by Seth Green) hates taking out the trash and won’t eat his broccoli. And when Mom (Joan Cusack) lays down the law he revolts.
“My life would be so much better if I didn’t have a mom at all.”
Milo, who looks about 11, learns a big life lesson with that. Words can wound. He makes his mom cry.
Imagine his guilt when, a few hours later, aliens abduct her. He scrambles after her and learns an awful secret: “Mars Needs Moms.” And not just any moms, GOOD moms. Who lay down the law, teach their children respect, discipline and values.
Martians spy on us, pick out a mom doing a good job and grab her so they can use her brain to encode their nanny robots, which they use to raise baby Martians far from the probing eye of the Mars Rover.
Milo is at a loss about how to rescue Mom until he himself is saved by Gribble, a portly subterranean nerd played by Dan Fogler. Gribble stowed away to Mars just like Milo and has survived, built robots and filled his own junkyard lair with high-tech gear. He is surrounded by goofy, dreadlocked outcasts from Mars society whom he can understand (he’s built a translator) but can’t communicate with.
Milo has mere hours to persuade Gribble to help rescue his mother before her brain is cooked, hours to find and meet a Martian graffiti artist (Elisabeth Harnois) in revolt against the regimented matriarchy of Mars.
Director Simon Wells is right at home with the endless digital chases, shootouts and such. He and his animators also deliver a couple of those big emotional moments that gave “Up” and “Toy Story 3” their pathos. But laughs? He doesn’t do well with the ones the script sets up.
There’s subtext, too. Clearly, Breathed the author was working out some mommy issues — women running a planet are too busy to nurture their own babies.
It all makes for an intricate if slow and humor-starved early Mother’s Day present in which a boy learns just how much his mom means to him.
review
What: “Mars Needs Moms”
Starring: The voices of Seth Green, Joan Cusack, Dan Fogler and Elisabeth Harnois
Directed by: Simon Wells
Running time: 89 minutes
Rated: PG for sci-fi action, peril
1/2