Easily the biggest flop of 2011, and pretty close to of all time, this Disney motion-capture film is about a young boy, Milo, who must save his mother (Joan Cusack) from Martians. In Martian society, females rule the world. They discard the males (who then live on the trash-strewn surface world) and the females are raised by nanny-bots. They need the Earth mothers in order to program these nanny-bots, and the process they use leaves the Earth mothers dead. With the help of another human (Dan Fogler),who was brought up to Mars in the same fashion as Milo (trying to rescue his own mother, he stowed away on their ship),and a rebellious female Martian (Elisabeth Harnois),Milo sets out to save his mother. A lot of viewers get stuck on the film's gender politics. I admit they do seem a little backward, especially with the shrill, feminist stand-in villain (played by Mindy Sterling, whom you may remember as Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers movies). However, I think that Ki, the Martian girl who helps Milo, is a positive enough female character that she should make up for the villain (the remainder of the female Martians are more or less faceless soldiers). If you can get past that stuff, the film is actually a lot of fun. Simple and straightforward, but a lot of fun. It's fast paced and beautiful to look at (thankfully, now that it's on video, you don't have to see the colors diminished in 3D),and it's very funny. Fogler and Harnois are both very good. Fogler's character, Gribble, is easily the best looking motion capture character I've ever seen. Gribble is an 80s kid and Ki has fallen in love with humanity after watching sitcoms about hippies, so they both talk in idioms from those eras, bugging modern kid Milo the whole time. I think most kids will love this movie, and it imparts a nice moral (respect your damn mother!). This fits in with the late crop of severely undervalued Disney films of the past several years, which includes The Princess and the Frog and Meet the Robinsons. None of these films are masterpieces or on par with Pixar's best, but they're excellent films nonetheless.

I am 18 and I love animation, not just Disney and Pixar, but also Studio Ghibli and most of the Dreamworks movies. In fact, some of my favourite films and shows are animated. I heard about Mars Needs Moms, and in all honesty I was not enthused by the trailer at all, finding it verging on sexist and unfunny. But that didn't stop me from seeing it, having being so impressed by Rango and Rio this year and being quite surprised by Hop(which has had some of the most prejudiced hate of any movie of 2011, with only the Justin Bieber movie faring worse),I was hoping that Mars Needs Moms was a case of bad advertising and perhaps a good movie.

But sadly, Mars Needs Moms(have I mentioned how much I dislike the title?) didn't deliver for me. It is far from the worst animated movie ever, the worst movie so far of 2011 or even the worst movie of all time, but for me it was just so bland and dull. It wasn't completely unwatchable though. The cast are solid enough especially Seth Green and Joan Cusack and Elizabeth Harnois as Ki was quite promising as well, the music while unexceptional was pleasant on the ears and the visual style if only in the backgrounds, effects and colours is quite good especially in the first ten minutes, which was a thoroughly decent start to a movie that went down the plug-hole just like that.

However, I wasn't so impressed with the character designs. Maybe I am missing the point, but some of the attention to detail seemed out of proportion(the aliens' heads look so bloated!) and the facial expressions are so forced. The movie is nowhere near as bad or as sexist as its trailer suggested, but in my view the script was very poor being unfunny and rather saccharine too, the story is generic and paced rather unevenly often being very dull up until the ending which is rushed and unexciting and I didn't care for any of the characters especially the creepy-and in a bad way-"Wingnut" character. The film seemed too short as well, so any depth and charm are seemingly absent while the moral feels shoe-horned in and feels superfluous to the already uneven tone to the story.

In conclusion, a disappointing movie, better than the trailer but while the kids may like it, adults probably won't. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Milo is a bratty boy who constantly bump heads with his exhausted mother. After yet another fight, his mother is kidnapped by Martians and he sneaks on board the spaceship. On Mars, all female babies are raised by robots and they intend to use mom's brain to program the robots.

The animation is motion capture CG and it looks OK. It's not top of the line but at least it doesn't look weird. I think the aliens look cartoonish and silly. This being a kids movie, having silly looking aliens may have been the goal.

The kid is really unlikeably bratty. Right off the bat this movie gets off on a bad tone. He's more whiny than heroic or funny. I kill for a joke that actually works. A female lead may be a better choice.

The story is passable, but I don't see it as anything special. Apparently the kid has to go to another planet before he realizes that he loves his mom. It's not a horrible kids movie if you grade on the curve and didn't know that it costed $150M to make. No movie that cost $150M should have a stupid name like 'Mars Needs Moms'.