As kids’ films go this one was pretty good. Dreamworks has scored another (slow-burn) hit I think. The shrieks of laughter from the small people in the audience were matched by the chortles from the mums and dads present.
Both my teen daughter and I laughed along too at this gentle adventure about a young girl (Tip – voiced by Rihanna who features in most of the music) who has to find her mum (voiced by J Lo) when cowardly Boov aliens take over Earth. She forges an unlikely friendship with misfit alien “Oh” who helps in her quest by transforming her car into a slurpee/slush puppy drink fuelled flying machine.
I liked that whilst Tip was a beautiful young girl from Barbados, she wasn’t overly skinny and not in any way sexual like her voice over pop star. She was proud of her achievements in maths and physics too – smart girl. The strong message about friendship and family was encouraging too. The popularity of the Minions in Despicable Me are apparent in the Boov race – and some of the airborne scenes were reminiscent of Avatar. The Eiffel tower featured so the French should be pleased.
But there was no doubt that the star of the show was the playful, purring cat called “Pig”. We all want one of those now.
With Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) as the voice of the loveable, colour changing alien and Steve Martin (sounding remarkably like King Julien in Madagascar) as Captain Smek it’s a star studded cast.
You need to get your kids along to this one – it’s less sickly sweet and much funnier than Frozen.
