For those of you who know the art critic, he demanded that I asses his favorite movie of all time, Space Chimps 2, Zartog Strikes Back. However, I have never seen that movie, so I couldn’t meet his wishes. But I have seen Space Chimps 1, so here goes.

Plot Beginning:

I assume that few of you have been scarred by the horror that is Space Chimps, so I’ll do a quick plot summary. Basically, we follow Ham III, the grandson of the famous chimp Ham who first went to space. This guy, however, is a circus act and gets shot out of a cannon every night. Why the circus is allowed to launch chimpanzees in to the air and out of the Round top is never addressed. Ham III is guided by a stern mentor, Houston, who really exists just so Ham can say, “Houston, we have a problem” when appropriate. Besides that, he acts as a mentor to young Ham.

Some random turn of events have the two carried away by a NASA jet, and Ham is put to train with three other extremely cliche characters, including a big, dumb commander chimp (Titan) who loves chimp puns and a young, promising one who nonetheless must stay behind (Zack: Actually, he does nothing important to NASA so it is left to the imagination why he is even included in the program. He never trains.) and the intelligent, fearless lieutenant and love interest (Luna) . These 3 chimps must learn the ways of the astronaut. Their mission? Find a lost, extremely expensive satellite.

Middle:

The three train under the close watch of three scientists. The two in the front are real jokers, but one small problem stands in their way: nearly every line they say is impossible to hear. Literally. One moment the imposing army General will say something criticizing the chimps, and a scientist will lean over and whisper to the other. But it sounds like the actors where actually whispering and its hard to hear a word they say. Other times, though, the talk normally.

Another thing: there is almost no background music, leaving the characters uninteresting lines to carry all the excitement. Back to the story. After “intensive” training, the chimps are now ready to blast off. However, once in air, they realize something. They were never operating ship at all! As the control board pops off and a bell and kazoo are revealed, Titan says, “It’s all bells and whistles!” Ha Ha! The ship crashes and the trio are left stranded, conveniently on the planet the satellite crash landed on. After a long while of just about nothing happening, they meet an evil alien, Zartog, who has used the satellite for his own purposes.

End:

For some reason, the satellite can turn into a giant robot, and Zartog utilities its giant arms to drop his disobedient citizens into a pool of silver liquid that freezes people solid. That’ll show them! Zartog is defeated, though, and they escape the planet just before a volcano of silver liquid erupts. Zartog is not so lucky. The heroes return home, welcomed by all.

Why?

Now that the movie is over, you have plenty of time to ponder why the movie was made, why it had a 64.8 million dollar budget, and most importantly, the fact that 34% of pro critics gave it a “rotten” rating. Its no surprise the movie was so bad, or that it’s sequel was straight to DVD. That, however, is a story for another time. So, my rating? Probably about a 3 out of 10. Belive it or not, I have seen worse movies. But this one takes the cake for the most awful editing and lack of any dialogue or plot. Even the idea was bad, and the execution was the worst.