Spy Pigs: The ‘Force’ is With You

The FBI has a new pet project. And who better to be the next guinea pigs on a government-funded secret ops mission than… well… real, live guinea pigs?

In this first Digital 3-D movie from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a federally funded crew of animal secret agents known as “G-Force,” trained by Ben (Zack Galifianakis) and his assistant, Marcie (Kelli Garner), has just been tasked with stopping power-hungry businessman Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy) from implementing his mission of world domination. The goal of G-Force is to locate and destroy Saber’s computer program called Saber Sense (also known as Clusterstorm) before Saber gets the chance to activate microchips in his worldwide line of household appliances and turn them into sinister killing machines.

Guinea pig Darwin (voiced by Sam Rockwell) heads up this secret mission with fellow guinea pigs Blaster (voiced by Tracy Morgan) and Juarez (voiced by Penelope Cruz), a cyber genius mole called Speckles (voiced by Nicolas Cage), and a hi-tech surveillance fly called Mooch (voiced by Edwin Louis).

But the mission gets foiled when, in the presence of a skeptical FBI unit that threatens to withdraw funding, Darwin learns that he was unsuccessful in capturing the Clusterstorm file. Before the animals can rectify that error and stop Saber, the pigs are captured and transported to a pet store where they meet fellow guinea pig Hurley (Jon Favreau) and a mentally unstable hamster called Bucky (Steve Buscemi).

Armed with only their wits, the pigs break out of their pet shop prison, team up once again with their human trainer, Ben, effectively vanquish the foe, and earn their secret agent chops – but not without some surprising plot twists to keep this PG live action, comedy/adventure interesting.

G-Force is unlike other animated, family friendly films because its main goal isn’t just knee-jerk laughs or the ah-isn’t-that-cute family approval vote. It tries to combine the best of the action/adventure and spy thriller genres – smart, gadget-toting, tech-savvy team on a mission to save the world, complicated car chase scenes, mass explosions, martial arts moves, and successful attempts to outwit those dastardly government suits. It’s all the stuff we typically see with adult human actors (and in Jerry Bruckheimer films, I might add), but now see happening on screen with animated/3-D guinea pigs.

The movie’s unconventional approach, though valiant, ultimately fails. For starters, while you as a moviegoer are trying to keep up with all the gadgets, gizmos, and plot details, you aren’t as prone to laugh, so in many cases this movie gets a more serious reaction than it should. Perhaps another viewing would prove different. Second, the human characters in the film, including the good guys you are supposed to be rooting for, are very one-dimensional and unbelievable. Because of this, I would have almost preferred the whole film to be either animated or for the film to have used live guinea pigs. Mixing both human and 3-D animated worlds in this film ends up being more annoying than fun.

Part I, Robot, part Transformers, part Spy Kids, G-Force tries to accomplish too much on screen.  However, the film does do a good job with teaching us about the power of doing what is right, the solidarity of friendships birthed in adversity, and the beauty of our individual uniqueness.

— Laura J. Bagby