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Starring: Carter Jenkins, Ashley Tisdale, Austin Butler, Ashley Boettcher, Doris Roberts, Robert Hoffman, Andy Richter, with the voices of Thomas Haden Church, JK Simmons and Josh Peck
Director: John Schultz
Genre: ComedyYes, it's cheesy and the CGI is just passable and it's got that whole 80s vibe, but this tale of kids vs aliens has some goofy moments that work, somehow.
Release Date: 13-Aug-2009
URL: http://www.aliensintheatticmovie.com/
Language: English
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
| Synopsis: |
A misunderstood teenager and his vacationing family encounter pint-sized aliens who are out to conquer the world – but not if the kids can help it.
My Comment/Review(s):Starring: Carter Jenkins, Ashley Tisdale, Austin Butler, Ashley Boettcher, Doris Roberts, Robert Hoffman, Andy Richter, with the voices of Thomas Haden Church, JK Simmons and Josh Peck
Originally entitled They Came From Upstairs, this movie is – like the vastly bigger-budgeted G.I. Joe – a veritable feast of corn. Oddly enough, it has a higher quantity of goofy fun.
It has some cheesy, clichéd moments, dodgy CGI and another retread of that whole "kids are wired differently from grownups" angle so prevalent in movies where the youngsters save the day while the clueless adults stand around gawping.
Think of it as some kind of variant on those 80s movies like Explorers, Critters and the like, only, unfortunately, without the services of Joe Dante or, er, the massive amounts of gore from those other alien invasion tales of that decade.
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| 'They've been just standing there arguing and completely ignoring us. These alien invaders should know better than to send married couples as the advance guard.' |
The central character here is brilliant high school student Tom Pearson (Jenkins, of the short-lived TV sea-monster series Surface), a deliberate underachiever in his studies because he longs to be cool instead of being a geek.
Sheesh, has the kid not been riding the wave of TV shows like Chuck, Reaper and to a lesser extent, Heroes and CSI?
It's simple, Tom: geeks rule. Where've you been the last few years?
Anyway, Tom's archaic youthful angst is just one reason why this film has such an 80s vibe.
Another one is the remote setting, with Tom, his sisters and parents, cousins, uncle and grandmother stuck in a lakeside holiday house for a week.
It just so happens that this house harbours a secret that is sought by a quartet of invading aliens.
Never mind that these guys are only knee-high to a pre-growth-spurt teenager; they – at least three out of the four – make up for their vertically challenged nature with extraordinary amounts of meanness.
Toss in some alien mind control device that turns anyone over 18 into a meat puppet for the baddies, and you've got the makings of a silly, goofball effort that won't melt your brain, but it won't exactly charm your socks off either.
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| 'Trust me, it looks like we're some bizarre human-alien hybrid, but we're just two happy individuals.' |
The kids needed to be a little edgier and with more personality, the aliens needed to get more screen time, and the adults ... well, they could all get zapped with alien vanishing rays and we wouldn't miss a single one of them.
Some of the funniest bits, God help me, are all about slapstick and involve Robert Hoffman as Tom's sister's boyfriend, after he falls under the mind control thingamajig. These moments are so corny that they become … almost charming somehow, helped along by Hoffman's effectively goofy expression.
This is mostly for the kids, with a few gross moments that might need a bit of explaining, but on the whole, parents ought to be able to get through it with their brains set in neutral.
Surfing: http://www.aliensintheatticmovie.com/
Making The Grade:
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