MPAA Rating: Rated G for general audiences
Recommended for ages 5 and up
Run Time: 90 minutes
Quick Take: Half the fun of flies in space is watching kids' reactions to out-of-this-world 3-D.
The Story: Housefly Nat lives in his insect enclave (a garbage dump, naturally), dreaming of what it would be like to be an adventurer like Grandpa McFly. Nearby, astronauts are launching a rocket, and Nat and friends Scooter and I.Q hatch a plan to defy parental insects and hitch a ride to NASA via a lunchbox (don't think too hard about flies on the sandwich) and head off with Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11 to the moon. Back home, Mama McFly is a wreck, and Grandpa has to fend off the treacherous plans of insect cosmonauts (this is, after all, 1969) to ensure his little diptera make it safely back to the junkyard.
Good If You Liked: Space Chimps, A Bug's Life, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D
Heads Up: Some little ones (really little ones) got jitters from the fight scene (Grandpa versus Russian flies) near the end. One tyke burst out in tears. A spider midway through the film was real enough for one tot to shout, "Go away, spider!" If you're getting really picky, you might object to the oddly buxom lady insects (they are stacked!) that give new meaning to the term, "Fly girls."
More Movies in Theaters Now:
Flies in Space Flick a Small Step for Moviekind, Giant Leap for 3-D
It helps to appreciate this cute little animated flick about flies in space if you check your adult disposition at the door.
Otherwise, you may find yourself wondering why the Apollo 11 rocket scientists fail to notice that the flies they're trying to capture are wearing ... space helmets. Or why the crew is still floating around the Lunar Module as they approach the moon when everyone knows the moon's surface has one-sixth gravity. (OK, maybe not everyone.) But that would be like doubting whether a coyote could really survive a 10-thousand pound anvil, or whether a fast-food enterprise is actually feasible at the bottom of the sea. And, where's the fun in that?
And Fly Me to the Moon, about a trio of flies in space, is fun. Not in an "I'd like to thank the Academy" kind of way. Let's face it, three houseflies on a space mission is no Schindler's List. But anyone who can extol the virtues of a dung ball while making maggots look warm and fuzzy ... well, that deserves a few points.
The fly flick follows Nat, I.Q., and Scooter, three insects whose thirst for adventure lands them aboard the Apollo 11 mission on its way to the moon. It's such a seemingly random choice (flies because bees were ... too Saturday Night Live?), but it lets filmmakers impart a little space lesson while following Neil Armstrong and company on their landmark mission to luna firma.
More importantly, filmmakers get to break out all their 3-D toys and lob virtual stuff at the audience with the kind of abandon previously reserved for theme park rides. It's all very effective, and about the time the bug spray comes wafting, you'll be grateful the effects stop short of olfactory. It's all a predictably huge "wow" with little kids (really, the target demographic) who laugh heartily, and even leap out of their seats as if to pluck the images off the screen.
Technical wizardry at least will tickle grownups, as in zero-gravity scenes where astronauts seem really to float. One can't help but think that, even with all the technical prowess required for such visual CG accuracy, it must have been a heck of lot easier to animate weightlessness this way than by, say, plunging real actors and a plane into a nosedive, the way Ron Howard did it for Apollo 13.
And, it's nice to be reminded that space flight is a remarkable achievement. What could be bad about teaching today's tots about those kinds of vintage-science moments so they can appreciate their road-paving, techno-savvy ancestors when, years from now, they're signing a patent on their push-button, invisibility cloak.
It's not the kind of entertainment you'd go to without a kid.
But then, it's really not made for grownup dispositions anyway.
Kids Will Like:
Belches, sneezes and, um, gas passing? Yup. Must be a kids' movie. Filmmakers unleashed their inner adolescents, allowing flies to expel sounds from every orifice, which, not surprisingly, leaves tots in stitches. Mama McFly is a nervous sort, falling into a faint each time she experiences a fright. It happens on numerous occasions, and kids laugh uproariously each time. The cool glasses alone were enough to thrill many little ones, but the 3-D stuff had them reaching for whatever was on the screen. Scooter's encounter with a forest of weightless orange droplets (don't despair moms: the pouch holds orange juice!) will amuse parents and kids alike.
Parents Will Like:
Mostly, the best special effect is from the audience: The sound effects -- "ooohs" and "ahhhhhs" from kids experiencing 3-D for the first time. The cartoon does a surprisingly great job recreating the thrill of those first steps on the moon, even using dialogue from the actual landing. You'll also appreciate the aerial ballet to the "Blue Danube Waltz," reminiscent of the original done for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
