Mars Needs Moms Review: Because Everyone Could Use a Little Love

I confess myself confused about the timing for the release of Mars Needs Mom. Surely this CGI, kid-friendly, Mom-loving flick would be more suitable for, oh say, Mother’s Day, not to mention garner mom a few more awesome presents as well. But just like drinking on Tuesdays, do we really need a reason to celebrate Mom and all the awesome stuff that she does?

Mars needs Moms is the story of a boy named Milo (voiced by Seth Green) who is absolutely fed up with his mom (Joan Cusack.) She nags him about the trash, eating his broccoli, not feeding said broccoli to the cat at which point he becomes convinced that the broccoli’s poisonous, and if the broccoli is poisonous why are you trying to feed it to me anyway? All in all, it’s tough being a kid, Milo decides, and life would be a lot easier if he didn’t have a nagging Mom around. And as they always do in Hollywood, Milo’s wish comes true in the blink of an eye when he witnesses his Mom getting abducted my Martians (yeah, I know. But it gets better).

It turns out the Martians have been scoping the earth looking for a great mother (i.e. disciplinarian) to raise the little Martian babies that pop out of the earth every 25 years or so. And this go ‘round Milo’s mom is their choice. Driven by the need to save his mom, Milo sneaks aboard the Martian’s spaceship and heads to Mars where he teams up with Gribble (Dan Fogler), the only other human on the planet, to take on the Martian army and the evil supervisor (Mindy Sterling). But with only seven hours to find and save his mom, and a less than cooperative, though genius, sidekick, Milo is on a path to learn just how valuable a mom’s love is.

First off, in no way did the promos for this movie prepare me for what I was going to get. Mars Needs Moms is a very powerful movie about a mother’s love and just how wretched the world would be without it. Parading as a child’s adventure movie, this film sucks you into a false sense of security that you’re going to laugh for two hours…this is not the case. Instead prepare for your heart to be wrung out, jacked up, let down, and full to bursting with emotions from this crazy, so very satisfying ride. This movie is about love, and in the cleverest, slyest, and sneakiest way this film delivers a whole lot of it. At some point while watching this film I realized I was repeating in my head, “It’s not fair, it’s not fair.” No, it’s not. I wasn’t expecting to be touched so much by this film; didn’t know they would crawl under my skin and manipulate my emotions as they spent the next two hours playing puppeteer with my heart. It’s totally not fair, and uncool. So, consider yourself warned.

Mars Needs Moms features a great cast and at the helm are funnymen Seth Green and Dan Fogler. Green is a fantastic talent to have as Milo and is convincing as the young protagonist. Fogler does a great job as Gribble, a clever yet lonely human hiding out on Mars. You can probably see his storyline coming from a mile away, but even knowing doesn’t change the pleasure of watching his journey. With two such men leading this film, I must say I expected a bit more of the funny, comedy stuff these two are known for. This film could have tried to incorporate a bit more laughter for its younger audience, but I didn’t hear any complaints from the kids in the theater so maybe I’ll let that one go. The film also stars Joan Cusack as Milo’s strict but loving mom and Elizabeth Harnois as the flower power-loving alien Ki. Tom Everett Scott is the movie for a total of maybe two minutes, as Milo’s dad, while Mindy Sterling plays the Supervisor, leader of the Martian army.

And now for the bad… The animation for this film was really quite bad. I understand that the animators took great pains to make the characters look like the actors who portrayed them, but really it comes off as always a case of almost… Milo’s mom looked almost like Joan Cusack, Milo looked almost like a kid, but most often like a shriveled old man which is almost good enough, but not really. The creators used motion capture animation as seen, and used far more effectively, in James Cameron’s Avatar. Here, there’s something quite off about it and more often than not the technology takes away from the film, such efforts and resources could have been better used elsewhere.

Another negative for the film is its portrayal of the male species of Martians could come off as racist. The junkyard living, dreadlock wearing, tribal dancing males whom the protagonist at one point refers to jokingly as dogs could raise some eyebrows. And while this most likely isn’t what the creators intended it is a bit problematic. If they had just left the dogs comment out, this would not have been a real issue to me.

But all in all, Mars Needs Moms is really quite an enjoyable movie. It has a great message, an enjoyable cast, kids will love it, and moms will probably love it even more. Everyone should find something to entertain. I walked out of the theater after watching this movie amazed and touched by the reality of a mother’s love. And Mother’s Day or not, we should all be reminded of that. See It.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures.