John has been talking for a while about wanting to see a movie adaptation of the Japanese cartoon G-Force. Sadly this movie will not be it. The name of this Disney project shares a name with the japanese cartoon and that is where the similarities end. We get news of the voice casting and a plot outline from the Hollywood Reporter:
Nicolas Cage, Steve Buscemi and Tracy Morgan will be three of the lead voices in “G-Force,” for Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Bill Nighy and Will Arnett also have joined the ranks of the human actors in the live-action/CG film, which marks the directorial debut of Oscar-winning visual effects innovator Hoyt Yeatman.
The story follows a group of ultra-intelligent animal commandoes who work for a government agency trying to prevent an evil billionaire from taking over the world. Cage will play Speckles, a mole; Buscemi will portray Bucky, a hamster; and Morgan will voice Blaster, a guinea pig. Nighy will portray an industrialist, and Arnett will play an FBI agent.
Animals with voices delight us. They will always be a part of film and television, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. I am all for these movies as long as they are good. A bad talking animal movie is hard to top when is comes to the spectrum of shit; but when done with care, they can move you in embarrassing ways (I was misty eyed when I saw Babe.)
One thing that concerns me is the use of so many celebrities as voice actors. No matter how good a celebrity may be – they can never touch a good voice actor. Mel Blanc voiced about a billion different characters and all of them were killer. In 1961 he was in a full body cast after a car accident, the crew set up sound equipment at his house and he still recorded the Flintstones!
I understand the desire to use celebrities in order to draw people in, but the truth is – a guy who lives in a basement and plays with puppets… will probably do a better job (for LE$$). Disney has been fortunate to have Pixar around to keep quality up, let’s hope the trend continues. Do it for Aesop.
