Mars Needs Moms Review

Produced by Robert Zemeckis, this slice of family-friendly sci-fi continues his infatuation with performance-captured animation, but with Simon Wells (great-grandson of H. G. Wells) at the helm, it lacks the sureness of touch that marks Zemeckis’ own forays into this new form. Instead, this tale of Milo, a young boy who stows away in the spaceship that’s abducting his mum to the Red Planet, feels both forced and formulaic, while Dan Fogler’s hyperactive Gribbles — a porky human stranded on Mars — is deeply, deeply annoying. Otherwise, it’s all madcap chases and skin-of-the-teeth escapes in a giant Martian fortress that invites unflattering comparisons to WALL•E. And yes, at the umpteenth time of asking, those synthetic humans are still totally dead behind the eyes. After watching this predictable effort, you might know how they feel.