Aliens in the Attic (2009)

Don’t you hate it when the ‘rents force you to shack up in some lake house in the middle of nowhere with your cloyingly cute kid sister, annoyingly perfect older sister, her creepy college boyfriend, your juvenile-delinquent cousin and his video game-obsessed twin brothers? Tom Pearson (Carter Jenkins) knows just how you feel.

Okay, since you’re probably no longer 10 years old, you may have forgotten that particular sentiment. Thankfully, the late-summer kiddie flick, Aliens in the Attic, is still bearable for those of us who are old enough to rent a car.

On the eve of a July 4th meteor shower, a small advance team of aliens are sent from the planet Zircon to Earth to dig up a buried thingamajig, which will help them take over the planet. The four little green guys (think Gremlins size) include a commander (voiced by Thomas Haden Church), a Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like pair of assassins (Ashley Peldon and Kari Wahlgreen), and a genius engineer (Josh Peck) who would just as soon forget the whole "kill all humans" plot. The invaders come armed with a fancy gun that shoots darts into the necks of their unwitting human targets, giving the aliens control over their bodies and minds through the use of something that looks like a futuristic Wii controller.

One problem: the darts have been improperly calibrated and will only work on human adults. This leaves the door wide open for the Pearson kids, whose lake-house attic the aliens have invaded, to save the planet. Tom steps up to lead the adventurous Scooby gang in a counter-attack, armed only with their pluck, a makeshift potato gun, and Tom’s Mathletes-level smarts (which he eventually learns not to resent). Meanwhile their parents, Stuart, Nina, and Uncle Nathan (Kevin Nealon, Gillian Vigman, and Andy Richter, respectively) are blissfully unaware of the all-out war for mankind being waged in the backyard.

The only adults who get in on the action are the ones who’ve fallen victim to the slings and arrows of outrageous alien critters: Nana (Doris Roberts of Everybody Loves Raymond fame), whose sole joy is rewarding her grandkids with Mentos, and Ricky, the previously mentioned slimy boyfriend (Robert Hoffman). Good thing, too. Some of the funniest moments in the movie involve the kids getting hold of Ricky’s remote and forcing him to fall down, bend over uncomfortably, and slap himself silly. The best of these scenes is a Matrix-meets-Ninja- Gaiden faceoff between Ricky and Nana. Hoffman’s classically trained dancer’s body—he was also in Step Up to the Streets 2—seems custom-built for the physical comedy and slapstick shenanigans that garner the film’s biggest laughs.

You may have noticed that I’ve barely mentioned High School Musical’s Ashley Tisdale, who plays older sis Bethany, and gets top three billing in the film. That’s because, aside from a few joyless scenes in her bikini, she’s hardly in it. The scene-stealer (and subsequent day-saver) is instead the other Ashley (Boettcher), the youngest of the bunch who is able to befriend the ambivalent alien engineer and convince him to help save Earth.

All right, so Aliens in the Attic is no Gremlins or Goonies (those were the days, right?) but it never sets its sights that high. It is, however, cute enough to keep the kids entertained and funny enough not to have you ready to pull out your hair. Plus, theaters in August are air-conditioned.