The mother in question here is a nameless stay-at-home parent played by Joan Cusack ("School of Rock"). Her son, Milo (Seth Green, "Sex Drive," voiced by Seth Robert Dusky), is nine-years-old and is a vegetable-hating, zombie movie-loving, whiny little brat who feeds the cat unwanted broccoli and bounces up and down on his mattress when told to go to bed.
"My life would be so much better if I didn't have a mom at all," says the spoiled bugger right in his mother's face when ordered to go to sleep. Wow, I wonder how this boy will develop as a character; what wondrous life lessons will he learn on his upcoming space-trekking adventures, hmm?
One night, dear old mummy is snatched away from the family home by a missile-shaped spacecraft, onto which Milo manages to climb aboard. The ship blasts off into the air and lands on the planet Mars, where Martians of course take residency.
It turns out the Martians need mothers, specifically Milo's mother, who the aliens have spotted can discipline her son. You see, every 25 years there are Martian babies that are born, but none of the population is capable of caring for the cute little space tots, so they want Milo's mum's brain inserted into an army of cosseting robots called nanny-bots. Makes sense.
So, it's up to Milo to rescue his mama from the clutches of the alien kidnappers before they can suck out the contents of her motherly brain. Joining him on his quest is fellow human Gribble (Dan Fogler, "Fanboys") and rebellious extraterrestrial Ki (Elisabeth Harnois, "Solstice"), who has been inspired by the ways of our Earthly society.
I can't shake the feeling that "Mars Needs Moms" would have been much more interesting if it were filmed in live-action instead of the motion-captured animation it incorporates. I mean, what with all the planetary exploration, ET-shaped Martians and ray gun-zapping action, this film may have genuinely worked and felt more ambitious than it currently is.
Instead, we are handed producer Robert Zemeckis' brand of so-called realistic animation, the kind he used in 2004's "The Polar Express" and 2009's "A Christmas Carol." With this, we get waxwork models strolling about like dead-eyed zombies, looking like they're going to nibble on other characters' noggins for precious brains or melt if they stand in the sunlight for too long. The uncanny valley (google it) is pretty present here.
The animation works perfectly fine on the aliens for the most part; their designs are simple but effective. The Martian setting looks a tad like the grid from Steven Lisberger's "TRON," all dim and dark, run by the merciless, wrinkle-faced Supervisor (Mindy Sterling, more commonly known as Frau Farbissina from the "Austin Powers" trilogy), who despises happiness and joy and colour. She's like Charlie Brooker, basically.
The two central humans, Milo and Gribble (the mother is unconscious for the running time's majority), are a nice team, but it's difficult to relate to them when they look like walking corpses. Gribble is at first an obnoxious, overweight slacker (the kind that calls everyone "man" and thinks everything is "awesome"), but I managed to warm to him after a while. Milo's just a typical little boy searching for his mummy, whom he inevitably learns actually loves him. So cute. So predictable.
You can tell there's some heart been placed into this and there's effort been put into the production, but it's ultimately all in vain. The film struggles to be a truly fun sci-fi adventure, bordering upon tedium on several occasions, which is sad given the decent concept and what looks to be good intentions from the filmmakers.
"Mars Needs Moms" is perfectly serviceable kiddie fair, but it can't escape how generally underwhelming it is as a movie-going experience. The film is no doubt perfectly harmless (possible sexism aside), spreading a good message of how mothers should be loved and appreciated, but it's just not exciting enough. Like its setting, it's a bit dim.
4/10
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