Film

If chimps can travel to space, can they also write animated films? This conceptual hodgepodge is essentially what you’d expect—a Saturday-morning-TV plot decked out with references to The Right Stuff, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey (but not, oddly, Planet of the Apes). The movie even makes fun of its own penchant for chimp puns. Incorporating music by, of all people, Blue Man Group, Space Chimps is part of a summer triptych featuring anthropomorphic characters in space, along with the infinitely superior WALL-E and the upcoming Fly Me to the Moon, in which talking houseflies hop a ride on Apollo 11.

The setup shows satirical promise, at least when confined to mission control. Ham III (Samberg), grandson of the first simian in space, is recruited to test whether a newly discovered planet can be reached without pureeing the astronaut. The inhabitants of this planet are multicolor blobs ruled by a bumbling oaf (Daniels, his voice unrecognizable), who taunts his subjects by dipping them in the runoff of an ice volcano. The chase that follows is pure free association; the animation lacks depth, and the only striking element is the Teletubbies-on-acid color scheme. Since this is a movie in which chimps can talk, the hallucinogenic vibe feels oddly appropriate.