Fly Me to the Moon

No big action scenes, no adult humor that the kids don't understand, this is just a nice calm cartoon that you can watch with your kids before bedtime. It won't rev them up or get them to jump up and down. Thy might even like flys after watching this flick.

Postitives, The color palette of the movie, reminds me of a bygone era. The scenery is pleasant. Music is calm.

Parental guide, The flies use the word Crap a few times and one of the flies refers to the others as idiots.

Plot is slow but it does tell a good story about the space launch that put a man on the moon. It is not a Pixar or Disney high end animated feature that we are so programmed to expect in animation nowadays. It just a slow nicely done movie for young kids...it probably not for you if you are an adult and watching it without kids.

It is pretty surreal what these flies can do... eh well... this is a cartoon, so anything can happen in it.

At first I must tell you that I love animated movies. Unfortunately this year's repertoire is very weak. This cartoon is nothing but a list of flaws:

1) I quoted the tag line. It suggests that this movie has great 3D effects. Well, I did not see any, at least not something special I never saw before.

2) The "flies" in this movie look nothing like real flies. At least they could've make them black. But cyan flies, seriously? With giant heads and slim torsos?

3) The story. I guess it was written for 6 year old kids. I could tell it in two sentences it is so over simplified.

4) Excessive patriotism. For example: "They are American files after all!" Oh, give me a break.

1st the good news. The 3-D is spectacularly well done, and they don't go for the gotcha gimmicks. The film is based on the true story of the high point in human history, and even features one of the actual participants in that story: Buzz Aldrin.

And now the meat of the matter: It's about FLIES, for krissakes! Flies with big, googy human eyes, true, but flies nonetheless. Remember when I likened the "Underworld" movies to rats vs. cockroaches? That wasn't intended as praise, and I never dreamed anyone would take it literally. This one's got even less empathy going for it. Baby maggots? Ugh. In one of those odd confluences of Hollywood groupthink, this flik was evidently on the drawing boards at the same time as "Space Chimps", also about critters in space.

Go rent "Apollo 13" and see a 9-rated movie about the REAL space program (RIP).

"Fly Me To The Moon" has to be the worst animated film I've seen in a LONG TIME. That's saying something since I have taken my son to see every animated release for the last 4 years now. The story is to be generous...trite. The voice acting is atrocious, Too cute sounding. The humor is of the Romper Room variety. The animation is passable for a Nickolodeon type of cartoon but this is being released on the big screen not cable television.

It gets a 2 only because of it's OK 3-D visuals. Some of the scenes had a mildly stimulating image but We've seen much better in the past. I also question the insistence of the filmmakers to have characters fly away from the screen rather than into it in most of the scenes. While that is interesting at first it became tiresome after the 3rd or 4th time. It seemed to smack of indifference to me on the part of the creators.

I will say this though, It had a pretty cool soundtrack. And for the record my son wasn't too crazy about it either. Bad movie.

Of course there are flaws with it, but it is not as bad as people say it is, but it could have been much better. It is dull in comparison to works by Pixar and Dreamworks, but I did actually enjoy it. There are better animated films out there, namely Beauty and the Beast but there have been a lot worse animated films as well, like the sequel to the Secret of Nimh. The script has its ups and downs, but I did actually laugh at a bit of the humour that was attempted. I do agree though that the female flies fainting act was overdone quite badly. The animation, in its 2D and 3D form is actually nicely done, in fact a vast majority of it was amazing. The main flaw with the film is the story. A bit slow and predictable, but the voice talents did well to redeem themselves in the slower bits. Another problem was the ending, Buzz Aldrin telling us that this wasn't a true story was unnecessary, we know that already. About the pace, although the film is relatively short, it just feels longer. But believe me, there has been a lot worse 3D films like Spy Kids 3, (with little sense of wonder, predictable story lines and an embarrassing cameo from Sylvester Stallone) The voice talents were very good. Christopher Lloyd made a good effort with Grandpa, and the three child flies were well done. Nicollette Sheridan also did well as his love interest, Nadia. Tim Curry, Russian accent and all, a little reminiscent of Von Talon in Valiant, also does well, despite his character being in the film for about 10 minutes, and his questionably meagre material. Most impressed me most was the soundtrack, with "Fly me To The Moon" and Strauss's Blue Danube waltz, which is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. All in all, a good film, that suffered because of the story, but I will say it was very dull at times. Whether you want to watch it is up to you. 7/10. Bethany Cox