Fly Me to the Moon

Wow! I have said before that 3D has come a long way. This animated story certainly proves my point.

Although I went in thinking this was either a Disney or Pixar production, to my surprise it is neither. This only serves notice that CGI artists with know-how, CAN work wizardry without being employed by either one of those giants.

The opening credits begin with a slow pan through a grassy, weedy, bug-infested area. A dragonfly seems to hover about a foot in front of your face, while various flying insects zoom onto the screen from over your shoulder. The soundtrack plays "Fly Me To The Moon" by a male vocalist...I guessed maybe Tom Jones, my companion thought it might be Frank Sinatra. Maybe it was Tony Martin. Let me know if you stay through the final credits; it should be there. In fact, I have tried to look up the featured soundtrack artists and their selections, because they were uniformly excellent. I haven't found anything yet...

To oversimplify: three adolescent flies want to have an adventure. They are encouraged by a garrulous grandpa fly (voiced by Christopher Lloyd, Marty McFly's zany mad scientist/friend in the "Back to the Future" franchise - McFly...get it? ...smile...) who loves to reminisce. Of course, houseflies can read newspapers, so they are aware of the first moon shot being scheduled by NASA. These three little guys plan to hitch a ride in Apollo 11 with Buzz Aldrin and his crew. ("Buzz" ... get it? .smile...)

Because this takes place in the 1960s, the Cold War is in full sway. The villains are Russian flies who seemed to be inspired by the accents of Boris and Natasha from the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" TV series.

The story is simplistic and all the human faces look alike, but the children in the audience loved the 3D (so did I!) and the movie does a neat balancing act between defying one's parents and being properly contrite when caught.