Space Chimps

My review of Space Chimps, a polar opposite experience from my review of Batman, also in this week's WestEnder.

Space Chimps

By Andrea Warner

0 stars

Monkeys in space probably sounded like a sure-fire hit to the Hollywood hotshots who gave this god-awful CGI movie the green light. It’s easy to score laughs (and some quick cash) with a monkey barrel’s worth of bad chimp puns— ‘cause kids are dumb, right?

Wrong. A big, fat, resounding silence greeted most of Space Chimps lame jokes, despite an audience laden with (I’m guessing) the studio’s target demographic: three to six year olds eating popcorn and drinking Coke at 10am on a Saturday morning.

In the film, The Space Program faces termination if a chimp-manned space shuttle cannot successfully return with proof of life on another planet. But, they need a “star” chimp to get more press for the expedition, so they recruit Ham III, grandson of the late, famous monkey astronaut, Ham. But, oh no! Ham III is self-involved, obnoxious, and just wants to (pardon the pun) monkey around in the circus as an entertainer.

As voiced by Andy Samberg (SNL, Hot Rod), Ham III is entirely unappealing and unfunny. Cheryl Hines and Patrick Warburton play along gamely as fellow chimps Luna and Titan, but it’s the equivalent of monkeys throwing feces at a wall—the jokes won’t stick no matter how much gusto they’re delivered with.

Most studios can’t rival the brilliance of CGI giant Pixar, but Space Chimps is so uninspired and dated, it feels as if it languished on the shelf for the last 20 years. The images are flat and lifeless, and the alien creatures that Ham and friends encounter look as if they were rendered by a five year old who lacks imagination. Space Chimps stalls, sputters, and dies before ever lifting off.

Threat From Outer Space

This is my Discorder review of Threat From Outer Space's latest album.

Threat From Outer Space
Bleeding the Dying Elephant
By Andrea Warner

Threat From Outer Space label their live show as a ‘barn burning dance floor graveyard”, and damned if they don’t make the energy transcend the boundaries of stereo speakers, bursting through with the shoulder-bobbing, booty-shaking new album, Bleeding the Dying Elephant.

The five-piece from East Vancouver take elements of rap, hip-hop, and indie pop, and sets them against a grand backdrop of humming, synthesized beats and grand flourishes of trumpet. The sound is familiar to more mainstream fare, but the unique rhythms keep things fresh.

One of the album’s best tracks, “I’ll Get Over”, brings on the funk with searing trumpets while another stand out, “Beginning of the End”, the album’s last track, brings the volume down with a voice that’s almost a dark whisper before flaring into a full-bodied chorus layered with electronics.

“5:40 AM” is exactly the kind of song you want to end the party on with its slow groove and subtly suggestive beat. “Stay Awake” offers up sinfully slow bass and an awesome Q & A chorus to counteract the track’s sing-speak resonance.

Even the lyrically tired “Guesswork”, which offers a recycled groaner like “9/11 was an inside job”, can’t mute the pulsing beats and charming brass that pushes the song from mediocre to good. “Worldwide” attempts to highlight the global intricacies of war, environment, and poverty—it’s pretty far-reaching, and at times feels more like a sermon than a solution or exploration, but at least it’s thought provoking.

TFOS’s socialist approach to making music lists the “key players” in the band, but doesn’t isolate the contributions. It’s just one more oddly confounding detail about this East Side gem.