'G-Force' guinea pigs headed for black hole

"G-Force" leaps immediately to the front rank of 3-D action movies about talking guinea pigs.

Where it will remain for eternity, given that after "G-Force" lands with a thud, there will likely never be another.

On the other hand, one must never underestimate the power of a Disney marketing blitz. Saturation advertising has pre-Potter kiddies primed for some talking-animal yuks.

But you should know that this is not "Babe." Do what you must to ensure that somebody else ferries your kids to this dud. Thank me later.

Trivia question of the future: Name two movies from the summer of 2009 starring Zach Galifianakis.

The one folks will get is "The Hangover," one of the biggest word-of-mouth hits in recent Hollywood history. The one no one will get is the soon-to-be obscure "G-Force," which features Galifianakis as an FBI agent supervising a program to train various animals as spies.

His star performers are three guinea pigs (Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan) and a computer whiz mole (Nicolas Cage).

The FBI (in the person of Will Arnett) wants to shut the program down, so Galifianakis' character tries to prove the worth of his team by sending them on a mission to infiltrate the home of an appliance magnate (Bill Nighy) with a secret plan to takeover the world.

Things go awry, as you might expect, but they do not go comically awry. The movie is shockingly, consistently unfunny, and stale: Morgan spouting hip-hop lingo from 10 years ago; Cruz doing Latin-babe Charo stuff; somebody else doing a surfer dude character.

And, the last refuge of the scoundrel who's made a lame children's movie? Farting. Lots and lots of farting.