Mars Needs Moms

• USA • 2011 • 88m •

• Directed by: Simon Wells. • Starring: Seth Green, Dan Fogler, Joan Cusack, Elisabeth Harnois, Mindy Sterling, Kevin Cahoon, Tom Everett Scott, Jacquie Barnbrook, Matthew Henerson, Adam Jennings, Stephen Kearin, Amber Gainey Meade, Aaron Rapke. • Music by: John Powell.

On Mars, the female babies are nursed by robots while the male babies are dumped in the junkyard under the command of Supervisor. They research Earth and finds that the boy Milo is raised by his Mon with love and discipline. The Martians come to Earth and abduct Mon, to use her brain to instruct the robots about how to raise children. However, Milo slinks into the spaceship and comes to Mars. He meets Gribble, a young man that behaves like a child and together with the hippie Martian Ki and Gribble's friend Wingnut, they try to rescue Mon and bring her back to Earth. But Supervisor will give her best efforts to stop Milo and his friends.

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Review:

Well, let me first start by saying that I wasn't particularly looking forward to this film. The plot sounded fairly familiar (kids having to rescue a parentparents) and I was guessing this could be another The Wild (which still had its moments but wasn't really that good a movie). But I eventually saw it anyway and well, it was surprising.

As you can read at the summary section it's about a kid named Milo. His mom gets abducted by Martians to learn their nanny-robots how to take care of children. Milo ends up in the spaceship and tries to rescue his mom, finding help along the way. It sounds cliché and not very interesting, right? Not to mention that the marketing didn't do a very good job at promoting this movie.

But in all fairness, this movie is actually quite good. I'm usually not a big fan of this kind of animation, but must admit that it looked really well in this movie. They're gradually getting better. I remember seeing Monster House and the Polar Express a couple of years ago and the animation bothered me. The characters looked weird and something about the movements never seemed right. This movie does it a lot better and it never bothered me a single bit. I actually thought the animation looked great. The people who saw this in 3D might have had another experience of course, but I'm speaking from a non 3D perspective here.

The characters and their voice acting was great. Dan Fogler gives a great performance as Gribble and has a moment in which he actually moves me. That came as a total surprise since I've only seen this guy do comedies. I never expected that he would bring a scene this well. Mindy Sterling shouts the same way she does in the Austin Powers film and that's always great too. I guess that Seth Green's voice wasn't kiddie enough for a movie like this, but at least he still did the movements. Whoever the kid is, he sounded alright. As for the character Ki, the alien hippie, well another total surprise. I often dislike the type of character that tries to be cool, make unfunny jokes and use a certain type of 'slang' (I guess). Ki, however, was an adorable character and she actually was funny, I liked the performance.

The story is honestly very predictable. You could often tell what was going to happen a couple of minutes before it actually happened. But if you can ignore that and some weird plot holes (why are there 2 alien genders if they don't need each other to make kids?) you'll find the story pretty entertaining. It's god a couple of jokes, plenty of action and some emotional scenes. It's a standard formula but that's not always necessary bad. Especially considering it's a kid's movie. I wasn't bored for a minute and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Other things to mention? Well I guess the soundtrack was okay, nothing special but nothing really bad as well. It's not a laugh out loud film, but the jokes are okay and well at least we don't really get many fart jokes.

As you can probably read on various places, there are people who take the movie way too seriously. They think this film carries an anti feminist message and that a real family needs a mother and father. Women who choose careers over children are evil! Well, those people clearly take this film way too seriously and are overall incorrect. The movie's main message is that a family needs love. They're not saying that they need a father (actually Milo's father is pretty much absent from the film except for the beginning). They're not saying that women should stay at home and abandon their careers (it's not even said that Milo's mom doesn't have a job, who says she doesn't?). It's not saying that a society run by women is evil (the other female aliens quickly changed opinions when they learned about family. Hell, the only evil one is a dictator and whether male or female, dictators are never a good thing) And it's not saying that men are worthless. Actually the latter two are an immediate result of a society of aliens grown up without being raised by a real parent. There was only one and she was kinda crazy). It's about children loving their parents and parents loving their children. It's a film about that crazy love thing. And if people can't appreciate that, well fine for them. I loved this film and will see it again. Call me tasteless, call me a sexist, I don't care. The film was great and it had heart.

Why I gave it an 8? I compare it only to the genre of animated films. You can't compare this film to the Godfather or the Dark Knight (and if I would, it would of course drop quite some points). But it was a good animated film that children can enjoy. Ignore the bad critics and give this movie a chance. Because let's face it, opinions are different. So sit down and make up your own mind, like you always should.

Review by dogsoldier_spoon-1 from the Internet Movie Database.