I'm going to admit that I've enjoyed Space Chimps. No, I've not gone bananas, but there's something beautiful to this goofy animated comedy that appealed, perhaps in its simplicity and its not attempting to try and be more than it cannot be.

Ham III (voiced by Andy Samberg). a circus monkey whose the key to the "monkey cannonball" act, happens to be the descendant of its decorated ancestor Ham I, the first monkey to have entered outer space. As NASA does send animals early in their history of missions to perform certain tests, and more so as guinea pigs, their current space programme is under threat of being axed, unless of course the scientists can all prove their worth. Just so happens that a space probe gets send to the opposite side of a wormhole, that it presents an opportunity to send a crack team of animals to the other side as well to test waters, hence the assembly of our merry animals.

You have Ham III, the reluctant astronaut put into the team for some PR purpose, who joins the usual caricatures of team captain and beefcake Titan, as well as beautiful Luna, who provides the brains for the mission and cursory love interest for our protagonist chimp. On the ground, besides the wacky human scientists who always deny their nerd status, you have Comet and Houston, fellow chimps who provide ground expertise to our crew's mission in space. Truth is, and a departure in animated movies of late, this one is sans big name stars or voice talent, and doesn't detract you away from the story, nor have one talent steal the thunder from the rest. Like a well oiled space mission, Space Chimps is and plays out like a consolidated team effort.

The adversary they face are a group of silly aliens under the control of Zartog, who consolidated his power no thanks to the human space probe by hitting the manual override button, as well as various environmental challenges reminiscent of the latest Journey to the Center of the Earth, and provides ample opportunity for some pretty wacky characters, with set action pieces like swinging from vine to vine, making more sense here when compared to that in The Crystal Skull.

The graphics here are kept simple and uncomplicated. It's easy to find fault with so many things in this movie, given the likes of Pixar which has set the benchmark, but as I've said, I'm not looking for too much, and the simplicity of it all in Space Chimps makes it a refreshing breath of fresh air. The story at times might find itself hard pressed to throw in some wisecracks on pop culture, but there are indeed moments to have it in the movie so subtly, you'll probably blink and you miss it. If you're willing to leave your 1% intellect at the door, perhaps you may just enjoy this movie about primates that exhibit similar emotions and attributes to our own.

Earth launches a probe that gets sucked through a worm hole. It lands on an alien planet where cruel Zartog uses the lander to rule his people. The scientists sent up another probe. This time they're using chimps. For one of them, they take circus chimp Ham the third who is the grandson of legendary chimp astronaut. Ham is sarcastic and never takes anything serious until they launch him into space. Ham is launched with Luna and Titan. Once on the alien planet, Zartog takes their spaceship with Titan still in it. Ham and Luna escape from the aliens and stranded with the spaceship on a 24hr countdown to launch back to earth.

I'm OK with the chimps. Everything on earth is fun and is a good children's movie. The scientists and the chimps are pretty cute and funny. On the other hand, the aliens look bad. They look like CGI from a TV show 10 years before. The alien world just look like really cheap TV. Zartog is an ugly villain and it's not really funny after landing on the alien planet.

When a probe is sucked through a worm hole in space to an alien planet three chimps are sent to see what happened to it. In order to sell the mission to the public the grandson of Ham, the first chimp, now a circus performer, in space is sent as one of the astronauts.

Wittily written, decently animated and reasonably acted film that is just okay instead of great. What went wrong? This should have worked. The pieces and the individual scenes all work nicely and are more often then not funny and clever. It's clear that the filmmakers were playing to both to the adults as well as the kids. Come on the reference the video for Addicted to Love.I saw some of this as clips at New York Comicon and was really looking forward to it. All of the pieces are there for a better movie...it just doesn't work as a whole. The pieces never fully come together. Its like looking at a puzzle where the pieces come together to for a picture but its not complete because the pieces never quite touch.

I think part of the problem is that they never had a complete idea or story. the earth stuff works, but from the very first alien scene its clear that those scenes are often half formed. Its as if they went before the cameras with a bunch of place holders still in place.

Its great in most of the parts but disappointing over all.(A second viewing may change my mind but as bits this has some of the best writing of the year. The problem its not a satisfying whole.) Worth a look on DVD or cable.- not for the ten bucks a head in theaters.