With 'Fly Me,' 3-D stands for dumb, dim and dialogue-challenged

The question I get about most animated movies goes like this: "It might be boring and stupid for adults, but will kids like it?"

And I usually respond, "Yes, kids will like it. Kids like almost everything, especially if it's animated."

Which brings me to Summit Entertainment's "Fly Me to the Moon," one of the weakest animated movies I've seen in a long time. Kids will like it because it's animated, and it's about three fly friends, and it's in 3-D. They will not care that the animation looks lifeless, color-dead and stiff. They won't mind the lame screenplay loaded with clichés. (Do we really need another "2001: A Space Odyssey" reference in a space movie?)

They might not even mind that astronaut Buzz Aldrin (the Buzz Aldrin!) comes on the screen at the end and tells us that the story we just saw - how three houseflies saved Apollo 11 from being sabotaged by the Russians - didn't really happen.

Some kids apparently don't mind being talked-down to.

Summit advertises "Fly Me to the Moon" to be the first animated movie shot in a digital 3-D format. It based its spacecraft visuals on NASA blueprints and used NASA transcripts in the script, presumably not in the parts where flies talk to each other in bad Russian accents.

In 1969, a young insect named Nat (voiced by Trevor Gagnon) dreams of grand adventures at the six knees of his Grandpa (Christopher Lloyd), who spins elaborate tales about the time he saved Amelia Earhart during her famous 1932 transatlantic flight. In human years, this would make Grandpa about 2.6 million years old, so who knows if he's telling the truth.

Nadia (Nicollette Sheridan), a Russian fly and an old flame of Grandpa's ('tis a pity she's not a moth), tells him her bosses are upset that the Americans are launching Apollo 11. Russian spy fly Yegor (Tim Curry) has been dispatched to make sure the mission fails.

Meanwhile, young Nat recruits his two best stock Hollywood friends, the brainy IQ (Philip Daniel Bolden) and chubby over-eater Scooter (David Gore), to assist him in his attempts to get aboard Apollo 11 and protect astronauts Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong, depicted as 3-D animated humans.

The film's dedication to realism might seem to be a plus here, but in fact, it works against the absurd nature of the comedy. To make flies the heroes in a movie requires less realism, not more. Director Ben Stassen, a documentary maker, displays little flair for comic timing, and Domonic Paris' screenplay doesn't give him much to work with.

Outside of a clever "Lord of the Flies" crack, "Fly Me to the Moon" flutters along on perfunctory dialogue, although Nat's mom (Kelly Ripa) warns him that "Dreamers get swatted!," an observation that doesn't really apply to any character in this story.

Will kids enjoy "Fly Me to the Moon"? Yes, about as much as they enjoyed "Alvin and the Chipmunks," another failed attempt to make a kids' movie with equal appeal to aging baby boomers. (Dave Seville finds singing chipmunks in his house and what does he do? Videotape them? Nope. He throws them out!)

Yes, we should keep in mind that "Fly me to the Moon" is just a movie.

Just a bad one.

Fly Me to the Moon

One and a half stars (out of four)

Starring: (voices) Trevor Gagnon, Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Ripa, Tim Curry, Robert Patrick, Adrienne Barbeau

Directed by: Ben Stassen

Other: A Summit Entertainment release. Rated G. 89 minutes.