The Movie
The premise of G-Force is so mind-damagingly insipid, we can't even feel sorry for anyone who saw the poster or commercial before plunking down his twelve bucks for a ticket. As happens every day, a good-hearted genius has trained an assortment of animals to perform undercover operations for the United States government. These include a trio of "talking" guinea pigs, a swarm of cockroaches, and a fly that takes orders over a tiny headset.
Yes. A fly.
I tried not to think about it too much, but the story involves a shady industrialist targeted by the self-named, rodential "G-Force," although they soon find themselves on the scurry when their government contract is terminated. Despite the odds and newly allied with a common pet-store cavia porcellus, they are determined to complete their mission and stop a nefarious global plot set to unfold within hours. Even if we can find some way to accept the central conceit of this movie, the evil scheme makes little to no sense, and the G.I. Joe-caliber bravado is only slightly less corny when being spewed from the mouths of guinea pigs. Oh, and a mole, voiced by Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage.
The Picture
This being the first feature film directed by Oscar-winning visual effects creator Hoyt Yeatman, the digital graphics are plentiful, ambitious, and outstanding. The high levels of detail evident on this 2.4:1 Blu-ray really serve to celebrate the tremendous effort that went into creating not just the furry title characters but all manner of light shows and high-tech machinery. Perhaps owing to the relatively short running time, the disc is virtually artifact-free, with only modest compression evident in some darker backgrounds.
The Sound
And, this being a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the audio is very aggressive with extremely active surrounds and powerful bass. There are a lot of minor touches in the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix too: little pieces of debris, a soft front-to-back whoosh as we pass through a small space, an off-screen knock on a door. For sheer goofy pleasure, there's also an avalanche of nuts, a jabbering fly zipping all around the room, and a gratuitous car chase that splits off into three directions before driving through a fireworks display.
The Extras
Cine-Explore picture-in-picture commentary gives us two of the furry stars, Darwin and Blaster, plus director Yeatman, with or without branching video files that pause the movie a few minutes at a time in order to provide even deeper insight. "Blaster's Boot Camp" is a faux orientation video (five minutes), and in "G-Force Mastermind" Yeatman and mega-producer Bruckheimer give credit for the original idea to Hoyt Yeatman IV, the director's young son (four minutes).
"Bruckheimer Animated" is a three-minute tribute to his greatest cinematic CGI moments, while "Access Granted: Inside the Animation Lab" (eight minutes) reveals more moviemaking secrets. "G-Farce: Bloopers" expose certain stars' embarrassment. Six deleted scenes run a total of six minutes. All of these video extras are in high definition. A trio of music videos totals about eight minutes, in high-bitrate MPEG-2 with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
Disc One supports BD-Live, Disc Two looks to be a fully-featured DVD copy of the movie, while Disc Three is a DVD-ROM with a Digital Copy for either iTunes or Windows Media. In addition, unlocking this DisneyFile Digital Copy now allows registered users to stream the movie online, anytime.
Final Thoughts
I'd say that this one is exclusively for the kids, were it not for the exceptional audio and video quality. The value in this well-adorned multi-disc bundle is also undeniable, so maybe it's time to give these justice-seeking super-rats a chance. Although that's a decision every Blu-ray buyer must make on his own.
Product Details
- Actors: Bill Nighy, Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Kelli Garner, Tyler Patrick Jones, Piper Mackenzie Harris, Gabriel Casseus and the voices of Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell , Jon Favreau, Penélope Cruz, Steve Buscemi, Tracy Morgan
- Director: Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr.
- Audio Format/Languages: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French, Spanish, Portuguese)
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Number of discs: 3
- Rating: PG
- Studio: Walt Disney
- Release Date: December 15, 2009
- Run Time: 88 minutes
- List Price: $44.99
- Extras:
- Cine-Explore Picture-in-Picture with Darwin, Blaster and Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr., with optional branching video files (BonusView)
- "Blaster's Boot Camp"
- "G-Force Mastermind"
- "Bruckheimer Animated"
- "Access Granted: Inside the Animation Lab"
- "G-Farce: Bloopers"
- Deleted Scenes
- Music Videos:
- "Jump" by Flo Rida featuring Nelly Furtado
- "Ready to Rock" by Steve Rushton
- "Go G-Force"
- D-Box Motion Code
- BD-Live
- Standard-Definition DVD Copy
- Digital Copy for iTunes or Windows Media
