It's a movie for kids. I understand that. I watched it with my 6 year old and she liked it, so I'll cut it a bit of slack - and in any event you can't apply the same standards to a kids movie that you would apply to a movie intended for mature audiences. Having said that ...
I've seen G-rated movies that were a lot better than this. The attempt here is to mix a story about 3 young flies who hitch a ride to the moon with Apollo 11 in 1969 in with a bit of the actual story of Apollo 11. So if a child watches this they'll learn about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and even a bit about the Cold War. Nothing wrong with that. Some of the animation (especially some of the space flight scenes, the animated portrayal of the capsule and the scenery backdrops) was very well done. But set against all that are the weaknesses of the movie.
First, I didn't care for either the animated people or the animated flies. The flies came across as too anthropomorphic. I know nobody wants to see realistic-looking flies and maggots in a cartoon, but these ones came across as just too cutesy. These are flies! And strangely, with the flies being too anthropomorphic, the animated humans came across as too cartoonish. They didn't look realistic at all. The Cold War - as I noted - serves as a backdrop to this (appropriately, since the Cold War was the backdrop to the actual times) but having flies involved in the Cold War? Yes, there were the evil Russian flies and the good American flies. That was a little too much. And then there was Buzz Aldrin's real-life walk on at the end of the movie. I can't really figure out what purpose his walk-on served. It seemed a gigantic piece of nothing, and lasted all of about 30 seconds. I have nothing against cute kids movies. I've rated more than a few quite highly. This one, though, is not one of the better I've seen.
I've seen G-rated movies that were a lot better than this. The attempt here is to mix a story about 3 young flies who hitch a ride to the moon with Apollo 11 in 1969 in with a bit of the actual story of Apollo 11. So if a child watches this they'll learn about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and even a bit about the Cold War. Nothing wrong with that. Some of the animation (especially some of the space flight scenes, the animated portrayal of the capsule and the scenery backdrops) was very well done. But set against all that are the weaknesses of the movie.
First, I didn't care for either the animated people or the animated flies. The flies came across as too anthropomorphic. I know nobody wants to see realistic-looking flies and maggots in a cartoon, but these ones came across as just too cutesy. These are flies! And strangely, with the flies being too anthropomorphic, the animated humans came across as too cartoonish. They didn't look realistic at all. The Cold War - as I noted - serves as a backdrop to this (appropriately, since the Cold War was the backdrop to the actual times) but having flies involved in the Cold War? Yes, there were the evil Russian flies and the good American flies. That was a little too much. And then there was Buzz Aldrin's real-life walk on at the end of the movie. I can't really figure out what purpose his walk-on served. It seemed a gigantic piece of nothing, and lasted all of about 30 seconds. I have nothing against cute kids movies. I've rated more than a few quite highly. This one, though, is not one of the better I've seen.