G-Force is a clandestine team within the FBI consisting of enhanced talking consisting of leader crested guinea pig Darwin (Sam Rockwell), tech expert star-nosed mole Speckles (Nicolas Cage), agouti guinea pig Juarez (Penelope Cruz), and fox guinea pig Blaster (Tracy Morgan). When G-Force's agency handler, Dr. Ben Kendall (Zach Galifianakis) sends G-force on an unsanctioned mission to the home of former weapons dealer turned home appliance magnate, Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy), to investigate possible intel on an imminent threat, the team discover a plan called Clusterstorm which is due to take effect in 48 hours. When the team present their findings to Agent Killian (Will Arnett) the evidence of Clusterstorm has seemingly vanished and with the unsanctioned op on Saber's home Killian makes clear his intentions to shutter G-Force and have the guinea pigs repurposed for experiments. After learning of this, Darwin and the others go rogue to try and prove Saber's connection to Custerstorm without their agency resources and equipment and must do so in 48 hours.
Released in 2009, G-Force is certainly an oddity when you look at it. Directed by visual effects artist Hoyt Yeatman, a frequent of many Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay productions, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer with a $150 million budget comparable to a Transformers movie, and featuring a plot that seems like one of those many direct-to-video children's films lining Wal-Mart bargain bins featuring the likes of Dean Cain and Kevin Sorbo, G-Force is one of those films that's just head scratching in its existence. While movies with talking animals can have decent sized budgets with the likes of Cats & Dogs, Garfield, Scooby-Doo, or the Stuart Little movies, in the case of Cats & Dogs that was $60 million, while the other three were based on established properties with Scooby-Doo near continuously in the popular consciousness since 1969, Garfield a mainstay of the Sunday comics, and Stuart Little a mainstay of elementary school reading lists. With G-Force, they've basically taken the framework seen in most of the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films (save the 2nd one) except the leads are guinea pigs. I can't say it works, but I also can't completely write it off either.
The opening 20 minutes are probably the best part of the movie because when we open with Zach Galifianakis approaching Darwin about the mission involving Leonard Saber, there is NO build up to it whatsoever and throughout this opening sequence which is filmed staged and presented exactly how you'd expect a PG-13 spy based action movie to open, it's pretty much played with a straight face with G-Force doing all the standard spy shenanigans. Pretty much every member of G-Force falls under a "type" you've seen in this type of formula action pic (leader, tech geek, etc.) and I will say there is a level of charm that comes through from seeing this stock action plot played out with guinea pigs as the action leads that did somewhat endear itself to me. Of course once the movie sidelines itself with much of the spy stuff put on the backburner until the climax, we watch G-Force putter around until the "plot" can catch up with a lengthy sequence involving G-Force stuck in a pet store or in Juarez and Blaster's case adopted by kids who are basically Sid and Hannah Phillips from Toy Story except with different names (though the "sid" ishness never goes as far as Toy Story because it would probably play much crueler on "actual" animals).
The middle section is where we also get the most grating character with Jon Favereau's Hurley who is massively obnoxious as Darwin's supposed "long lost brother" who anchors himself to the rest of the plot for no real reason, is a massive liability to both himself and Darwin, and is the source the film's worst jokes and most eyerolling moments, and while I understand this is a family film and comic relief is expected, we already had a comic relief character well prepared with Tracy Morgan's Blaster who is actually fairly humorous and endearing, so that just makes Hurley's inclusion all the more pointless. The rest of the cast are fine all things considered with Sam Rockwell selling the no-nonsense leader and Penelope Cruz fitting well as the team's live-wire, and then we have Nicolas Cage as Speckles whose voice seems...off, I don't know if it's been run through a synthesizer or if Cage is modifying his delivery, but it's weird to get a name actor like Cage to voice your movie and hide his very recognizable voice. The movie's special effects are fine all things considered with the Guinea Pigs never really looking like they're "there", but they are expressive with lots of movement, and the action sequences in the final act involving household appliances does lend itself to some creative moments.
G-Force is inoffensive family entertainment that will appeal to its target audience. There's really not much here that differentiates the nuts & bolts of the standard for this kind of movie, but the novelty of seeing it on a much larger budget than similar fare like Spymate does admittedly make it more engaging of a sit than the direct-to-video fare attempting this same thing with 1/15th the resources.
