'Chimps' doesn't bother shooting for the stars

In a summer that offers family audiences the varied charms of "WALL*E," "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Meet Dave," "Space Chimps" comes across as too little, too late.

Although it is not absolutely unwatchable, "Space Chimps" is an unfortunate combination of low-rent animation and formulaic storytelling, suitable only for very young viewers who are easily entertained by bright colors, loud noises and crudely animated chimpanzees.

The one redeeming feature adults will notice is that the movie is not as bad as the trailer makes it out to be.

In "Space Chimps," the national space agency is in danger of losing its funding, and when an expensive space probe is sucked into a wormhole and disappears, the situation is dire.

It's too dangerous to send human astronauts to retrieve the probe, but the agency has three well-trained chimps it has kept around for show, and the Senator (voice of Stanley Tucci) breathing down the scientists' necks agrees that a successful chimp mission could save the agency.

The problem is, the chimps (who can understand English and are smarter than their human overseers) come across like hairy nerds. The agency tracks down circus performer Ham III (Andy Samberg), the grandson of the first space chimp, and recruits him for the mission.

Cocky, annoying Ham wants nothing to do with spaceflight, but he finds himself taking off with brainy Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton), the muscle-bound captain. Poor little computer-whiz Comet (Zack Shada) is left behind with Ham's mentor, Houston (Carlos Alazraqui).

The chimps make it through the wormhole, land on a planet where a greedy creature (Jeff Daniels) is bent on world domination and learn valuable lessons about responsibility, heroism and friendship. Cue uninspired music.

Samberg and Hines are adequate but no more, while Tucci and Daniels phone it in. Warburton provides a bit of amusement with Titan's streak of lame puns. Kristin Chenoweth lightens things up with her over-excited vocals for tiny Kilowatt. The computer animation looks as if it were designed by artists who couldn't sketch a Smurf. Director Kirk De Micco, who co-wrote the script with Robert Moreland, aims low with "Space Chimps" and still falls short. This mission should have been aborted long before it got to theaters.