Movie Review Mars Needs Moms

Mars Needs Moms (2011) 

Directed by Simon Wells

Written by Simon Wells

Starring Seth Green, Dan Fogler, Mindy Sterling, Joan Cusack

Release Date March 11th, 2011 

Published March 11th, 2011 

Motion Capture, or MoCap for you nerds out there, seems like a lot of extra work for little extra benefit. Take for instance the new movie “Mars Needs Moms” which employed actor Seth Green to portray the 11 year old protagonist only to realize as production began that Green, even attempting a voice, sounded nothing like an 11 year boy. This came after they hired Green, dressed him in a green screen jumpsuit and digitized his image as he acted out the role.

The lack of a proper voice forced the producers to hire a real 11 year old, actor Seth Robert Dusky, to provide the voice of the young protagonist Milo, meaning that the studio paid a premium for Seth Green to jump around in a digital costume, a price they could have cut in half had they simply hired an 11 year old to begin with or, if the role was too taxing for someone that young, hired a stuntman to simply handle the running, jumping and climbing the role required.

None of this would have been necessary at all had Imagemovers and Disney, the companies behind “Mars Needs Moms,” simply used traditional computer animation like the groundbreakers in Disney's own house at Pixar. Instead, millions of dollars were spent to deliver a movie that feels as disjointed and failing as the attempt to have Seth Green pretend to be 11 years old.

“Mars Needs Moms,” based on the popular children's book by Berkley Breathed, is the story of Milo who, after fighting with his mom, finds aliens in her bedroom as they are scampering out the window with mom as their prisoner. Giving chase, Milo finds himself swept up by the alien ship and eventually finds himself on Mars where the population of mostly women has been abducting Earth moms for years in an attempt to clone their parenting techniques.

After briefly being held prisoner himself, Milo is rescued by Gribble (voice of Dan Fogler, Balls of Fury), an overgrown child who claims to be an astronaut but actually has a story very much like Milo's. Gribble agrees to help Milo and they are soon joined by Ki (voice of Elizabeth Harnois), a Martian with a rebellious streak and a love of “flower power”

Together, these three misfits have to rescue Milo's mom (voice of Joan Cusack) from the nasty Supervisor (Mindy Sterling) before mom's memory is destroyed and implanted into a Martian robot.

There is a terrific story somewhere in “Mars Needs Moms.” The action has a strong motivation and the story plays out with a relatively precise logic. The problem is none of the movies are very entertaining. In attempting to give Mars a little grunge the filmmakers made the planet less interesting to look at; Milo and Gribble spend much time in an alien garbage pile which is as visually enticing as it sounds.

The humor of “Mars Needs Moms” is pitched to the ear of young kids who may chuckle here and there but there is not a memorable gut buster, even for the littlest of little ones, in all of “Mars Needs Moms.” This is a movie with a rather dramatic conceit about a boy losing his mom and fighting to get her back; you need a good sense of humor to pair with that or risk boring your core audience whose eyes and ears are yet to be tuned fully for drama.

Robert Zemecki has been trying to make Motion Capture his niche in the animated business, something to separate his brand from that of Pixar, Blue Sky Studios (“Ice Age”) and Dreamworks Animation (“Shrek,” “How to Train Your Dragon”). Unfortunately, three movies into his deal with Disney his company ImageMovers has been temporarily shuttered.

His “A Christmas Carol” was modestly profitable but at an extravagant cost the film was not a world beater at the box office. Now, “Mars Needs Moms” arrives to poor reviews and first weekend box office results that some say could be the worst cost to profit ratio in Hollywood history, barring a strong international rally.

Zemeckis’s insistence on Motion Capture was likely the death knell for “Mars Needs Moms,” a modest story that needed a more modest production if it needed to be made at all. The story simply doesn’t justify the effort involved and likely could have been produced for less than the reported 135 million dollars without all of the trappings and cost of Motion Capture.

It’s a moot point now of course, the film is out there and it has failed. ImageMovers has closed and Mr. Zemeckis hopes to relaunch it as a home for the adult themed, Beatles remake “Yellow Submarine” in 2012. It will likely be a long time before Disney or anyone else attempts another Motion Capture feature for kids like “Mars Needs Moms” and that is as much a commentary on this overwrought technology as it is on the minor pleasures provided by the story of “Mars Needs Moms.”