The plot: Ufologist Armin Sonntag (Dermot Magennis) has dedicated his life to proving the existence of extra-terrestrial life, much to the detriment and embarrassment of his son Luis (Callum Maloney). However, when three aliens (Dermot Magennis, Ian Coppinger and Paul Tylak) land on Earth, Luis realises that maybe his father wasn't so crazy after all. Of course, if he doesn't keep things under control and out of the way of the neighbours, he may not be in town long enough for that to matter.
Sorting through the cast list this time around is going to be a bit tricky, since it seems like no-one cared enough to accurately update the credits for who is doing what voice. I mean, I keep reading that Will Forte is in the cast here, but damn it all if I can even confirm which character he’s playing here. From what I can ascertain, though, the acting is mainly just passable. Maloney as the titular Luis does okay as the bullied teen looking for some kind of escape from his day-to-day, something made all too easy to sympathise with once it sinks in just how lethargic a presence Magennis as his father Armin is. He’s not even the fun kind of conspiracy nut that most films involving aliens tend to feature by cultural mandate, since the most we see of him is him sleeping on the couch or otherwise ignoring anything his son has to say.
Magennis also doubles as one of the main aliens, alongside Coppinger and Tylak, and while their chemistry together works for the brand of extra-terrestrial we’re given, it’s not enough to distract from how derivative these aliens and their character design ultimately are. Lucy Carolan and Eoin Daly generate some laughs as the overly striving-for-perfection neighbours, and Lea Thompson as a Child Services agent (yes, that Lea Thompson) kinda clears up why finding a complete list of actors for this is a bit tricky; when you’re this over-qualified for the job, maybe it’s not worth highlighting all that much.
The animation is… I dunno, it’s okay but, considering the upward trajectory the bigger studios have been on of late, this is pretty sub-par. It’s like the Lauensteins took the human designs of Inside Out and filtered them through Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; the character dimensions and faces are that out-of-whack, seemingly for no reason. The design for the aliens doesn’t help that Pixar-lite feeling, since they are so clearly meant to evoke Illumination’s Minions that it doubles-back into the vending machine aliens from Toy Story that inspired them in turn. We get maybe one or two other depictions of alien life over the course of the film, but none of it really rises above the feeling that these people are desperately aiming for toy-friendly designs. There’s some fun to be had when the alien and human features merge, as one of the gimmicks of the main aliens is that they can disguise themselves as anything with a hair sample, but only in the theoretical sense.
I say that because this story, while starting off on a rather interesting note, doesn’t have a lot to work with. The initial drive for the aliens visiting involves them wanting to order a product from a home shopping network, a motivation reminiscent of a species found in Douglas Adams’ work as far as unexpected reasons for first contact. But from there, they end up stranded on Earth and just bumbling around for the majority of the film, taking only the most basic opportunities to utilise this premise. The inclusion of Armin’s quasi-traumatised alien hunter would ordinarily add some potential Elmer Fudd-esque antics to the proceedings, but that ends up taking the back seat to the B-plot concerning his worthiness as a father. Watching him bumbling around his landfill of a house, it’s hard to argue that maybe the Child Services agent has a point in getting Luis away from this guy; negligence isn’t exactly a good way to get an audience on-side with a character’s woes. Of course, because this is a kids’ movie, the stand-in for CPS has to be shown in the most villainous light possible, in what is honestly a pretty worrying trend for this demographic. Not to say that there aren’t legitimate concerns along those lines, but for a film this basic and starved for reasons to exist, it’d be a genuine miracle if this had the salience to treat that subject in the manner it deserves.
All in all, this is probably going to be a short review because there really isn’t a lot to talk about: It’s just another dull distraction for kids in the skin of a ‘family-friendly’ film. The acting is basic, the animation is passable while largely reminding the audience of far more fulfilling family offerings, and while the story starts off on an interesting note, it quickly devolves into trying to fill up the not-even-90-minute running time with anything that comes to mind, letting little things like actual humour and story progression take the backseat. Again, I feel the need to bring up how outside of the intended demographic I am, but I also feel the need to bring up how even for a film meant solely for younger audiences, there really isn’t a lot here to find interesting even through that perspective.
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