It's a computer-animated flick, circa 2010, so there's not much to complain about here. Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back arrives on DVD with a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Avoid Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back like a case of scabies. When a small mountain of quality animated films, like, oh, anything Pixar's ever released, are available on DVD and Blu-ray, there's really no excuse for dreck like this to be sold in stores, never mind bought by an unsuspecting public. I can't fathom parents subjecting their kids to this in good conscience, unless it's some kind of punishment. It's utterly brainless and hardly entertaining, except in that "Ooh, pretty colors moving quickly!" kind of way. I would imagine only children of a very young age - say, no older than three - would sit still for the duration of Space Chimps 2. something a little more complicated, but that's effectively Space Chimps 2 in a nutshell. Oh, and Jane Lynch turns up voicing a scientist. After accidentally launching himself into orbit and meeting up with alien buddy Kilowatt (voiced by Laura Bailey), which might be the most annoying sidekick character created in the last decade, and bopping around the planet for a while, he returns to Earth to help Ham, Titan (Warburton), Luna (Hines) and Houston (Carlos Alazraqui) reclaim Mission Control from the clutches of alien menace Zartog (voiced by John DiMaggio). The plot, such as it is (the film runs but a scant 76 minutes), concerns Comet (voiced by Zack Shada), a technical assistant who yearns to visit Malgor, the planet discovered in the first film, but who is deleted from the flight manifesto because of budget cuts. But was it something in Rob Moreland's screenplay that totally dazzled the returning actors (he co-wrote the first Space Chimps)? Or does Andy Samberg just employ better lawyers? Whatever the reason, the character of Ham, originally voiced by Samberg, is given life by Tom Kenny here. I mean, I understand that a sequel was inevitable, particularly since Space Chimps effectively doubled its budget at the box office. What amazes me even more than the fact that there's a sequel to Space Chimps is that the filmmakers somehow managed to get three of the main actors from the first film - Stanley Tucci, Cheryl Hines and Patrick Warburton - to return here. Lucky, lucky me - and how thoughtful of director John H. Fortunately for me, the straight-to-DVD sequel Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back recaps almost every major development from the previous film before the plot of this second installment gets going. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm neither five years old or starved for entertainment that actively insults my intelligence, but even when I happen to stumble upon the film on HBO, I can't change the channel fast enough. I'll admit it up front: somehow, in all my movie-watching, I missed the cinematic glory that is 2008's Space Chimps.
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