G-Force, the family adventure by producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean), isn't a bad movie by any count and works as a fun kids movie. But a tired and formulaic plot means the movie is no 'must-watch' by any means and caters mostly to the little ones. The story follows a specially trained team of secret agent guinea pigs that work for the US government. Their mission is to stop an evil billionaire (Bill Nighty) who manufactures home appliances from taking over the world through a microchip he has planted in them.

To begin with the positives, the animation is top-notch. The guinea pigs look very photo-realistic and after a few minutes you forget they're CGI. There is an inherent cuteness factor to them, and just like last year's Alvin and the Chipmunks, the filmmakers know that this will be the biggest draw for kids and their parents. There are plenty of jokes to keep a smile on your face (although the toilet humor gets old after a while).

But that brings me to the story. How many times have you heard this: "Evil genius wants to take over the world and only the unlikeliest of heroes can save the world."? Too many to count, I imagine. And G-Force fits right into that category. The plot is tired and doesn't attempt to bring anything new to the table. There are subplots strangely similar to last year's Bolt, and the finale has an uncanny resemblance to Transformers. Aside from being predictable from the very start, the biggest problem here comes out in the final reels – the villain's motivations are laughably ridiculous. As if it wasn't hard enough to stomach the improbability in an evil billionaire's plan to take over the world by installing timed microchips in every home appliance he manufactures, the final act tries to implement a twist so ridiculous and far-fetched that one wonders what was going on in their mind when coming up with it. Sure, kids will chew it up, but adults are sure to gasp at the screen at the stupidity of it all. Still, lessons are learned and there's a bit of emotional quotient towards the end that makes partially saves it.

Another problem is the action scenes. There are too many of them, and most of them are uninvolving. The movie opens with a 10 minute long covert operation that gets tiring a quarter of the way through. And every other ten minutes or so comes another chase or mission that only serves as eye-candy and gets monotonous and unfocused, especially in the finale. The special effects are great, but what's the need for exploding cars and buildings in a kid's movie?

The voice acting is impressive. Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz, and Nicolas Cage do a great job bringing their characters to life. Bill Nighty plays a stock villain with no character development or motivation, and it comes across badly. Zach Galifianakis impresses as the leader of the team, but Will Arnett is wasted in a small and too serious of a role for a comedian of his caliber.

So is G-Force recommended? Mostly if you have kids or are between 3-13 years old. It's not a bad movie by a stretch (it's much better than last year's Beverly Hill Chihuahua) and you will not get bored in the theaters, but it's a shame that the movie could have been so much more. They had an interesting bunch of characters on screen, but unfortunately they settled on making cookie-cutter Hollywood fare than something truly unique.

Rating – 2.5 out of 5 stars.

I advise you: get drunk and watch this festival of furry, talking technophilic cuteness.

I barely remember the story which means it didn't suck and I remember a movie that sucks but just go along for the ride with amazing set pieces and impressive animation.

G-Force is a specially trained team of guinea pigs, a mole and a fly. They must foil the plans of Saber, a millionaire, who wants to take over the world with these home appliances that ultimately transform into Megatron. Or something along those lines.

I watched this one because it was available in 3-D. My first Disney Digital 3-d film. From the aspect, the kids will enjoy the things that pop out at you. This film has a few of those moments, water, debris and glass. Although it just didn't do it for me. The 3-D in this film didn't enhance the film or astonish me. Thus, it ultimately feels like a gimmick and will until a certain film that is planned to be released in the near future apparently plans to change that. I'm not saying it wasn't well done, I just expected more.

The film is mixed animation and live action. The animation is obviously the rodents and insects, while the cast is formed of Hangover star Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett and Bill Nighy. Galifianakis is really timid here and Nighy does his whole British thing, while Arnett plays the G-Rated version of an A-hole. Nothing memorable, and the kids won't care about these people. They want to see the funny guinea pigs do funny things. Yet, in the theatre I was in, which was full of kids, had hardly any laughs. That's not to say they won't enjoy themselves, because the film is entertaining. It's just not that great a comedy.

The voice acting is great, Sam Rockwell plays Darwin, the lead commando. Tracy Morgan is Blaster, if anyone has seen him on 30 Rock, it's the same here. Penelope Cruz is the female character, who toys with the boys on which one she likes. Nicolas Cage plays Speckles, the mole who is a tech whiz. In this film if you did not know it was Cage playing this character, you would never know it was him. The voice is so different that is makes you scratch your head, well done on all parts.

The child favourite without a doubt is Hurley, the guinea pig that our team meets in a pet shop. He has a bad case of flatulence and is the 'dumb' friendly character. He gets the most laughs, which like I said, wasn't many. Finally Steve Buscemi has a small role as a hamster and he plays it exactly as you would picture Buscemi to play it. The voice work from everyone was top notch, but if I were to hand it to anyone, it wold be cage for his transformation to the unknown.

The animation is well done, the final action sequence does feel like it comes straight out of transformers, but it looks neat. The interaction between human and creature is still noticeably fake, even after all these years they can't seem to perfect this. Since this is a Bruckheimer film, you know there has to be non-stop action. This involves car chases left right and centre, covert-operations and battles with giant creatures. The film is fuel injected to the bone with this. There are moments here and there to slow everything down, yet they are extremely short and don't seem to do much to create conflict for the characters. When the guinea pigs are told they aren't special, they get doubt themselves, this lasts all but one scene because in the next they get a pep talk and are back to the chase sequences.

The plot is one that we've all seen before. Unlikely heroes stopping someone from world domination. So don't expect anything new in the story department. The reveal at the end is lame and predictable, the whole bad guy plan is extremely far fetched and doesn't make sense. Although if you're expecting this film to make sense I guess you're in the wrong theatre. These are talking guinea pigs after all.

The film is entertaining and the kids will most likely enjoy it. It does seem like a typical Hollywood kid flick and it is exactly that. There's no life lessons learned and by the end of the film your kid will want a new pet.