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 and written by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley with a story by Yeatman, the film is his directorial debut, having earlier 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. It follows on  Darwin (Rockwell) and his team of specially trained rodents (Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz and Jon Favreau) who attempts to find a way to break out and prevent a mad 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 budget. It received mixed reviews from critics. Plot. The film revolves around a special team of trained animals. The primary field team consists of three guinea pigs: Darwin, Blaster, and Juarez, as well as a mole, Speckles and a  fly named Mooch. The unit's leader Ben, orders an unauthorized infiltration of the residence of home electronics and appliances magnate, Leonard Saber, who is working with an unseen business partner named Mr. Yanshu. Saber's appliances all have control chips inside them that will activate a function called Sabersense, allowing electronic communication. The team retrieves sensitive information about a scheme called Clusterstorm, which will occur in 48 hours. However, when Ben's superior, Kip Killian, arrives for his evaluation, he is angry at Ben for performing an unauthorized mission. The government agent orders the unit shut down. With the  help of the humans, Darwin, Juarez, Blaster, Mooch, and Speckles escape, but find themselves in a case bound for a pet shop. Ben and his assistant, Marcie, send a trained cockroach named Harry to infiltrate their hideout, which is now guarded by FBI agents, and recover Darwin's Personal Digital Assistant, which contained the information acquired from Saber's computer. Trapped in the store's pet rodent display case, G-Force meet Hurley, a guinea pig, Bucky, a hamster, and three mice. Although Blaster and Juarez manage to get themselves sold to a family with plans to return to extract  their comrades, Speckles is thrown and seemingly crushed in a garbage truck. Meanwhile, Mooch manages to return to Ben to tell him where his mammalian agents are, but Darwin escapes with Hurley before he can arrive to collect them. While Blaster and Juarez escape their new owners to return to Ben, he and Marcie discover that the intel in the PDA has a computer virus that hid the scheme. At this time, Darwin and Hurley make their own way to their superior. En route, Darwin sees a Saberling coffee maker and decides to investigate it, but it turns into a  violent robot; which he and Hurley defeat. After examining the wreckage, they discover that Sabersense and Clusterstorm are connected and that the chips found inside the appliances actually transforms them into killer robots. Once they all return and inform Ben of Speckles’ apparent demise, Ben eventually confesses that they are not special genetically enhanced animals as previously told, but ordinary ones Ben took in and trained for the team. However, Hurley lifts them from their despair by reminding the team of the astounding feats that he has seen them do. He also suggests using the virus in the PDA to  take down Saber's computer mainframe. Emboldened, Ben provides the field team with the means to infiltrate the Saber residence and plant the virus in the mainframe. Unfortunately, FBI agents are ordered by Killian to capture the animals dead or alive. After the team infiltrates Saber's mainframe, they encounter a bomb trap, but avoid it because of their size. In an appliance store, all of the machines also transform into killing machines; one of which tries to kill the 3 guinea pigs after trapping Hurley inside. The team fight the monster until it is destroyed by the bomb trap , and the resulting battle separates the group, leaving only Darwin and Mooch to take the mainframe down. Darwin finds Speckles alive and well (having faked his death) at the mainframe, who reveals that he is the mastermind behind the plot and is also the mysterious Mr. Yanshu (Yanshu means "mole" in Chinese), tricking Saber into planting the control chips into the appliances to repurpose Clusterstorm into causing a massive planet-wide bombardment of space debris to make Earth's surface uninhabitable while using Sabersense as a cover up, and reveals that he was the one who sabotaged G-Force's  presentation to ensure that they did not find out about his plot. He explains his motive is to exact revenge on the human race for the death of his family after being persuaded by his father to do so. Speckles promptly amalgamates the various appliances in the vicinity into a giant walking robot, which attacks the police and grabs the command truck with Ben, Marcie, Killian, and Saber inside. During the fight, Darwin manages to persuade Speckles by saying that G-Force is his family now, one he was close to destroying like what had happened to his first family  long ago because Ben was the only human who took him in when they had nobody else. Realizing Darwin is right and that he is close to destroying the only family he has left, Speckles tries to shut down the robot, but he cannot control them anymore. Darwin used the virus on the PDA to take it down, destroying the robot and nearly killing Hurley while the FBI take Saber into custody. The guinea pigs are personally commended by the FBI Director, who also appoints them special agents of the FBI. Furthermore, G-Force is reinstated as a unit  of the Bureau and expanded with Hurley, Bucky, and the mice inducted as new recruits. Meanwhile, Saber was forced by the FBI & the government, to make the largest consumer product recall in history, where Speckles is given the duty of removing the malicious chips from all 178,003 Saber appliances, before rejoining the team, and Agent Killian is relocated to an FBI base in the South Pole as punishment for trying to arrest G-Force. Production. Development. 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. Music. Trevor Rabin scored the music for the film and its soundtrack. 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. Filming. "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. Release. Theatrical release. "G-Force" was theatrically released on July 24, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Home media. "G-Force" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 15, 2009 by Walt Disney Studios Home  Entertainment. Reception. Box office. "G-Force" grossed $119,436,770 in North America and $173,381,071 internationally for a worldwide total of $292,810,686, 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". Critical response. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 22% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 4.43/10. 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". Video game. 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. Soundtrack. G-Force: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the film's soundtrack album by Various artists and was released on May 1, 2009 by Walt Disney Records.