G-Force (film)

G-Force is a 2009 American spy adventure-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Directed by Hoyt Yeatman in his directorial debut and written by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley with a story by Yeatman, who worked in the area of visual effects alongside co-founding Dream Quest Images. The film stars Zach Galifianakis, Bill Nighy, and Will Arnett and it features the voices of Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz, Jon Favreau, Nicolas Cage, and Steve Buscemi. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled the film's visual effects. The story follows Darwin (a guinea pig) and his team of specially trained rodents who, after failing a mission, must break out of a pet shop and stop an evil billionaire from taking over the world.
G-Force was released in the United States on July 24, 2009. It grossed $292.8 million worldwide against a production budget of $150 million. It received mostly negative reviews from critics.
A special government program, training and deploying highly intelligent rodents as secret agents, is facing abolition from the FBI. To save the department, Dr. Ben Kendall, the head of the program, orders an unauthorized mission for the primary field team known as G-Force, consisting three guinea pigs named Darwin, Blaster, Juarez, respectively, a mole named Speckles, and a fly named Mooch. The mission is to infiltrate the residence of home electronics magnate Leonard Saber, and acquiring information about a new microchip he has developed. Darwin finds a classified file titled Clusterstorm on Saber's personal computer, containing plans for global extermination, and downloads it to his PDA. However, the next day during a briefing with the FBI, the file turns out to be false, which angers Ben's superior, Agent Kip Killian, who shuts down the program. He orders the animals' capture, forcing Darwin, Blaster, Juarez, and Speckles to escape and hide in a delivery truck.
The truck goes to a pet store where they are mistaken for ordinary rodents and are locked up in a cage. There, they meet Hurley, another guinea pig, Bucky, a cocky hamster, and three mice. Determined to finish their mission, each of them forms an escaping plan. Blaster and Juarez get themselves sold to a family, while Speckles pretends to be dead to get buried, but is thrown into a garbage truck instead, seemingly crushed to death. Darwin escapes with Hurley's help, who becomes convinced that Darwin is his long-lost brother due to their birthmark. While Blaster and Juarez escape their new owners, Ben and his assistant, Marcie retrieve Darwin's PDA from the FBI, and discover that it is infected with an extermination virus. Saber holds a meeting with his associates, including his prime engineer, the mysterious "Mr. Yanshu", and reports that Clusterstorm will launch in less than 48 hours.
On their way to Ben's house, Darwin and Hurley see a Saberling coffee machine and Darwin decides to investigate it. Upon trying to remove its microchip, the coffee machine turns into a violent robot, but they manage to destroy it. G-Force reunites at Ben's, but after hearing of what happened to Speckles, Ben reveals to the team that neither of them were genetically engineered as they believed to. They were rescued from various places, and Darwin himself was bought from a pet shop just like Hurley told him earlier. Despite learning their true origins, the team still has their faith in themselves. Deciding to use the infected PDA to shut down the microchips, they go to Saber's mansion in their hamster ball-shaped vehicles, during which they escape from the FBI agents sent by Killian to capture them.
At Saber's mansion, the team tries to reach the mainframe, but Hurley accidentally steps on a bomb-trap, resulting in an explosion which separates Blaster and Juarez from Darwin. Clusterstorm activates, turning all Saberling products into killing machines around the world. When an FBI field team led by Killian arrives at Saber's mansion to arrest him, he claims that he simply wanted to use the microchips for electronic communication. Arriving in Saber's basement, Darwin discovers that a surviving Speckles is Mr. Yanshu, the mastermind behind Clusterstorm (Yanshu means "mole" in Chinese). He elaborates his plan to use the Saberling products for a bombardment of space debris to make Earth's surface uninhabitable, therefore destroying humanity as revenge for killing his family. He amalgamates the various appliances into a giant robot, which overpowers the police. Darwin falls from above, losing the PDA in the process, but Hurley saves him and uses his weight to lift Darwin up to the robot.
Darwin tries to convince Speckles to change his ways, reminding him of how Ben took them in and made them a real family. Realizing his plan will cost him the only family he has left, Speckles attempts to shut down the system and fails. Mooch recovers the PDA and Darwin uploads the virus to the main server, destroying the robot, while Juarez save them from falling. They later find Hurley under the ruins, injured and unconscious. Darwin states that Hurley's actions were truly heroic, and finally acknowledges him as his brother. Hurley regains consciousness and becomes a member of the team.
G-Force receives personal recognition from the FBI Director, who tells them that Saber had been assigned to recall all his products, while Speckles is given the duty of removing the microchips before rejoining the team. Killian is relocated to an FBI base on the South Pole as a punishment for trying to arrest G-Force. The FBI gives full support to Ben's program, with Bucky and the mice joining it, and Darwin, Blaster, Juarez, and Hurley become official FBI Special Agents.
On 14 October 2008, Hoyt Yeatman was set to direct G-Force. Cormac and Marianne Wibberley wrote the script for the film. Jerry Bruckheimer produced the film with the budget of $150 million for release in 2009. On 17 October, it was announced that Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz, Nicolas Cage, Jon Favreau, Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifianakis, Bill Nighy, Kelli Garner, Will Arnett, Gabriel Casseus and Jack Conley joined the film. Dee Bradley Baker joined the cast on 12 November to play Mooch, a housefly. On 18 November, it was announced that Trevor Rabin would compose the music for the film. On 23 November, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film. Development of the film was completed in Los Angeles, California. Production then moved to Santa Clarita, California for the final phases of animation and production in order to maximize tax credits offered to foreign film projects in America.
Trevor Rabin scored the music for the film. The soundtrack also contains "I Gotta Feeling" and "Boom Boom Pow" performed by The Black Eyed Peas, "Just Dance" performed by Lady Gaga and Colby O'Donis, "Jump" performed by Flo Rida and Nelly Furtado, "Don't Cha" performed by The Pussycat Dolls and Busta Rhymes, "Mexicano" performed by Tremander, "Ready to Rock" performed by Steve Rushton, "How Do You Sleep?" performed by Jesse McCartney and Ludacris, "Falling Down" performed by Space Cowboy and "O Fortuna" performed by London Symphony Orchestra & Richard Hickox.
G-Force was filmed at 992 S Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA, Culver Studios – 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA, Los Angeles, California, USA and Santa Clarita, California, USA in 2009.
G-Force was theatrically released on July 24, 2009 in Disney Digital 3D by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
G-Force was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 15, 2009 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
G-Force grossed $119,436,770 in North America and $173,381,071 internationally for a worldwide total of $292,817,841, against a budget of $150 million.
In its opening weekend, the film earned $31.7 million, ranking at No. 1, and replacing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The film declined −44.8% on its second week behind Funny People and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 22% based on 128 reviews, with an average rating of 4.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "G-Force features manic action, but fails to come up with interesting characters or an inspired plot." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5 stars out of four and called it "a pleasant, inoffensive 3-D animated farce". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
The video game based on the film was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Microsoft Windows on July 21, 2009. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions come with 3-D glasses.
G-Force: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released in May 2009 by Walt Disney Records.
In Japan, the film has a different theme song "Dake! G-Force" by Murasaki Shikiku.
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