Saturday Night Live

Andy Samberg, Witty Script Lift Animated ‘Space Chimps’ Off Launching Pad

HollywoodChicago.com — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:50:01 -0700

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – So far in the 2008 summer animation season we’ve seen cuddly martial artists (“Kung Fu Panda”) and robots in love (“WALL-E”).

But where are the monkeys and how long before the first joke about flinging their poo? Both desires are satisfied in the playfully visual and wryly funny “Space Chimps,” which is anchored by the vocal talents of Andy Samberg (“Saturday Night Live”).

Ham III (Andy Samberg) – the slacker grandson of the first chimp blasted into space before manned spaceflight – takes off into out-of-this-world adventure and comedy in “Space Chimps”.
Image credit: Vanguard Animation

Andy Samberg voices Ham III in “Space Chimps”.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Samberg is the voice of Ham III: the chimp grandson of the first NASA monkey in space. He has been reduced to being an attraction in a cheap circus under the guidance of his grandfather’s old buddy Houston (Carlos Alazragui).

Meanwhile at Cape Canaveral, the reputation of the space program rests on the discovery of a wormhole in space that has sent a probe to a distant and life-sustaining planet.

On that planet, it turns out the probe has been captured by a rubbery, blue life force named Zartog (Jeff Daniels). Zartog’s intent is to use the multi-tasking machine to enslave his fellow inhabitants.

It’s up to the space program on Earth to send another rocket through the wormhole to retrieve the probe. The only problem is that humans might not survive the wormhole experience.

Cheryl Hines voices Luna in “Space Chimps”.
Image credit: 20th Century Fox

Enter chimp astronauts Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton). They’re joined by a reluctant Ham III who has been recruited by the astronaut program for marketing purposes. It’s up to this unlikely simian team to save the day on the distant planet and keep the space race on Earth alive.

The beauty of this rather conventional, kiddy adventure is that it revels in not taking anything seriously. The script is peppered with stupid physical comedy, silly puns and dry witticisms on the concepts of space and monkeys. This mood is fun for both children and adults and it grandly accomplishes its entertainment mission.

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While the computer animation is clean and graphic, the faces are still a bit creepy in extreme close-up.

The design of the distant world seems to pay homage to Dr. Seuss with the inhabitants looking similar to the residents of Whoville. One character in particular – Kilowatt (a great Kristin Chenoweth) – is cute comic relief. She practices heroics by singing operatic notes and traveling through the digestive system of a flesh-eating monster.

The silliness is contagious in this film with tributes to past space movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Right Stuff” adding to the farce. The geeky mission scientists are particularly droll. They provide a jokey repartee to the evolving process of monkeys in space.

It’s impossible not to like a “cartoon” with an adventure on the Cloud of Id. It’s Ham III himself who defines the spirit behind this terrific family comedy when he remarks: “Life is a circus. Only the tents get bigger.”

“Space Chimps,” which stars Andy Samberg, Jeff Daniels, Cheryl Hines, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth, Carlos Alazragui and Stanley Tucci, opened on July 18, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Adam Sandler is White Ladies Man in Judd Apatow’s ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:01:00 -0700

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – In the relatively anemic anthology of recent Adam Sandler flops, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” hangs above with comedic charm and a nonsensically amusing plotline. The story is divisively intermingled with racial and ethnic sensitivities between the Israelis and Palestinians.

At first, it even feels like a scribe sat down for a few weeks, slammed back a few brewskies and toked daily on the good ganja while attempting to ink a forcefully novel plot.

Emmanuelle Chriqui as Dalia in “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Surprisingly, its idiosyncratic nature tends to work as you build esteem for the libidinous man Adam Sandler has transformed into.

While Sandler has played the full gamut of roles in recent memory, this time he’s actually a Thor who beckons women to his sexual mercy.

Sandler as Zohan is the white version of the legendary Tim Meadows character The Ladies Man from “Saturday Night Live” but with a thick Israeli accent.

Zohan is an Israeli counter-terrorist commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his unlikely and embarrassing dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York.

To make matters more outlandishly canned, Zohan’s arch nemesis, Phantom (played by John Turturro), has a similarly humiliating reverie: selling shoes.

Lainie Kazan is welcome motherly relief – except when she’s revealed utterly nude from the rear and causes an eruptive audience gasp – and Rob Schneider, of course, can’t let an Adam Sandler flick make it to the big screen without joining him on it.

As well, you might have noticed Dave Matthews in the film, but I didn’t.

In “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” Adam Sandler stars as Zohan: an Israeli commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Hollywood hands Sandler a bone throughout the course of his reinvented, Jason Bourne-like ways and affords him the moves, styles and suave demeanor even Sandler in real life would envy.

Indeed, he epitomizes making love and not war and even isn’t shy about “making sticky” with women who had to be pushing 80. Whew.

The one woman he fancies the most and doesn’t return your stomach’s digestive matter is the beautiful and enormously unlikely love interest Sandler would never actually touch with a 100-foot stick: Emmanuelle Chriqui.

The Israeli Zohan begs the Palestinian siren to work for her in her New York hair salon.

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She quixotically accepts – because Sandler’s co-written script with the on-fire Judd Apatow told her to – despite his having zero experience and initially thinking Paul Mitchell himself would hire him.

Mitchell later is wasted with an unnecessary cameo where he absurdly calls Sandler to implore his employment.

Due to Zohan’s Hollywood-blessed ability to rack in the female clientele with his sexual deviance, Sandler denies what was once his ultimate fantasy in an ultimately scripted act of employer loyalty.

This script worked its magic best when you temporarily forgot it was trying ever-so delicately to roil you silly out of your seat but fell flat when its corniness unnaturally tried much too hard.

While one could respect the amped-up Hacky Sacking, Hacky Sacking a live and meowing cat? Now come on. That’s even more cruel than squirrel fishing.

“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” opened everywhere on June 6, 2008.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com