'Aliens in the Attic' review

Robert Hoffman (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

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Tom (Carter Jenkins) is a C- student afraid to show how smart he really is. But when he's forced into a summer vacation with his parents (Kevin Nealon, Gillian Vigman), sisters (Ashley Tisdale, Ashley Boettcher), cousins (Austin Butler, Henri Young, Regan Young), uncle (Andy Richter) and grandma (Doris Roberts) to "the most boring area in the whole country," he'll have to use his brains to defend the family from seemingly hostile pint-sized alien invaders (whose voices include Thomas Haden Church and Josh Peck).
 
The buzz: From John Schultz, the director of "Like Mike" and "Drive Me Crazy," comes a family film that hopes to succeed on a (kinda) original concept, rather than a pre-sold idea. But it wasn't screened in advance for critics, which is not usually a good sign...

The verdict: Lightweight entertainment for kids with a thankfully low level of obnoxiousness. The aliens never pose much of a threat (they're too busy wisecracking lines like "We come in pieces"), and the special effects used to create them aren't that special, but the young cast carries the action with breezy charm. The adult actors are just here for the paychecks (Roberts gets what's probably her only chance at a martial arts fight sequence, but otherwise deserves more than denture jokes), and a better movie would have a few more clever set pieces along the lines of the standout anti-gravity sequence. As summer filler "Aliens in the Attic" gets the job done, it's what bargain matinees at air conditioned theaters were made for.

Did you know? The movie originally had the more menancing title "They Came From Upstairs." That was demoted to tagline status when someone decided a movie for kids about aliens in an attic should probably be called "Aliens in the Attic."

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