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Title: Mars Needs Moms
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is some mild violence involving guns. Recommended for ages 7 and up. |
It’s a shame that just as Image Movers Digital finally managed to perfect the motion capture technology so that it doesn’t look dead anymore, the studio shuts down. “Mars Needs Moms” is the last film we’re going to see from Robert Zemeckis’s animation studio, and after seeing this movie in particular I’m saddened by the news. No, it’s not because this is a great story. Truthfully, the story of a boy who finds out his mom has been abducted by aliens from Mars isn’t too compelling. The reason the moms are getting abducted is simply because the aliens are too lazy to raise their own kids. Well, that, or militant feminism has gone completely wrong. I’ll let you decide.
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So they abduct our hero Milo’s mom, and he gets stuck on the ride and now needs to get her. He meets up with Gribble, who appears to be the only other human on Mars, and Ki, one of the aliens who tries to put some color in the black and white world. Ki is one of those aliens who just knows that humans can’t be all bad, and Gribble is an annoying blabbermouth, so I feel confident in saying neither of these characters are very memorable. Milo is nice, but he’s sort of bland in a way other optimistic kids tend to be in these sort of family films. It’s sort of a shame because for the first time ever, the motion capture technology finally got around the “dead eyes” issue.
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Now the facial expressions are clear and have life behind them, which is more than I can say for the script. I wasn’t bored by the film because it’s such an artistic achievement. While Earth looks fairly standard, once we get into space and on the ship the film just oozes with style. The IMAX 3D makes the action sequences immersive and engaging. Image Movers Digital is second only to Dreamworks when it comes to taking 3D and using it as a storytelling device rather than a gimmick, and I wish all 3D films looks as good as this one. But the script...yeah, the script and the characters are kind of bland.
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They just don’t engage me the way the visuals and the action does. In the past I may have given it a pass just because the film is fun to watch, but this film comes out on the heals of “Rango.” That movie may not be in the IMAX 3D format, but even with it’s flat 2D it has just as much style and great action sequences as this film does, and on top of that gives us the good story and characters to back up the visuals. Add to the fact that “Mars Needs Moms” IMAX ticket costs double than that of “Rango’s” non-3D priced ticket, and it comes pretty hard to recommend this when there is a better option out there. But this film does look pretty. My how it looks so pretty.
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