Marooned 'Mars' needs more than moms

This could be the first time in the history of science fiction movies that the humans are scarier than the Martians.

If you've seen commercials for the 3-D movie “Mars Needs Moms,” you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The kid in those commercials looks really creepy, like a photo-realistic copy of a human being, but with dull, lifeless eyes and plasticized skin.

“Mars Needs Moms” is another Robert Zemeckis-produced project that uses the same motion-capture computer-generated animation that the Chicago-born filmmaker experimented with in “The Polar Express” and “A Christmas Carol.”

In those earlier motion-capture projects, the kids looked slightly psychotic, as if at any moment they would whip out kitchen knifes and dispatch the nearest adults with Jack the Ripper-like precision.

The animation technology has improved enough so that Milo, the kid in “Mars Needs Moms,” looks slightly less murderous. But the moments where we're supposed to get all fuzzy and emotional over him don't quite work, because there's a disturbingly unrealistic quality to his realistic look.

Seth Green supplies the voice and perky personality to Milo, a rebellious youngster who learns to regret telling his mother (Joan Cusack), “I would be better off if I didn't have a mom!”

Faster than you can say “Oops!,” Martians abduct Mom and whisk her off to their home planet, unaware that Milo has climbed aboard their vessel.

At first, Milo is terrified of the Martians, looking slightly like Pandora's natives in “Avatar,” minus the blue coloring. The leader of the Martians, simply called the Supervisor (Mindy Sterling), resembles E.T.'s great-grandmother having a really crabby day.

All the time.

For reasons that become clear late in the story, the Supervisor intends to turn Milo's mommy into a nano-bot to raise the next generation of Martian babies, who apparently come out of the ground at birth and don't have dads.

Milo races to rescue Mom, and, fortunately for him, he receives help from two unlikely characters.

The first is Gribble (“Take Me Home Tonight” star Dan Fogler), a rotund human who appears to be a cherubic amalgamation of Dan Aykroyd and John Candy.

He's an underground resistance fighter against the Martians. He and his robotic crablike assistant coach Milo in how to evade the Martians while the poor kid searches for his mother.

Then there's Ki (pronounced “key”), a rebel Martian female (Elisabeth Harnois) who has studied old Earth TV shows from the 1960s and thinks humanoids still use phrases such as “Right on!” and “Groovy!”

She's also a Martian version of graffiti artist Banksy, given to spray-painting colorful flower-power murals all over dull Mars buildings, most of which resemble the Death Star architecture from “The Empire Strikes Back.”

“Mars Needs Moms,” directed by Simon Wells and based on a book by Berkeley Breathed, lacks the wit and style of a “Toy Story 3,” or even the current 2-D Western movie parody “Rango.”

“Mars” has its moments of charm and fun (Gribble's ability to turn beet red when he's embarrassed is a nice touch), but it's largely an animated “Goonies” adventure with engaging, but uninspired chase scenes, generic blaster gunbattles and swarms of lovable monkey-like Martians intended to be the Ewoks of their world.

Stick around for the outtakes over the ending credits, which are so good, they make sitting through the rest of the movie worthwhile.

We see the actors — Green, Cusack, Fogler and Harnois — trussed up in harnesses and hundreds of computer sensors as they act out key scenes on the motion-capture stage.

It's a fascinating glimpse at how real actors go about creating 3-D animated characters who look frighteningly realistic.

Frighteningly.

“Mars Needs Moms”

2 ½ stars

<b>Starring:</b> Seth Green, Dan Fogler, Joan Cusack, Elisabeth Harnois

<b>Directed by:</b> Simon Wells

<b>Other:</b> A Walt Disney release. Rated PG. 88 minutes