Space Chimps

Not since Cornelius and Zira first touched down on earth on Planet of the Apes that chimps will once again grace the silver screen in years. There is so much bad publicity as of late on various sites about this movie. The movie is produced by the duo of John H. Williams (Shrek, Shrek 2) and Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, The Addams Family). Seems animal space flights is the flavor of the month. Nick Abadzis’s graphic novel "Laika" is one of the first in the past year to examine this side of the animal world experiments by man to conquer the stars. As much as we want to glorify the animal achievements both dogs and chimps did die in these flights. Heralded as heroes by the space community, these poor animals went through torture in space. Cartoons are always on a light side of reality and with caution because of the young audience.  This movie is all in fun but one must remember the blotted out stories of over 50 years of animals that suffered in the exploration of space. This will be a great movie but it just is a bit tainted because of the true realities of the early space program and Nick Abadzi’s bold telling of Laika’s 5 hour flight that lead to his death. This movie is cliched at best as you might noticed from the trailer, but I highly recommend it for the family.