Inane, incessant guinea-pig action heroes

Do little kids know what a PDA is? Because in G-Force, Disney's 3D dud about a team of high-tech guinea pig spies, the fate of the world hinges on who gets control of a file downloaded onto a personal digital assistant.

Then again, do little kids know what a good movie is?

Just about the only folks likely to find this humdrum hybrid of Mission: Impossible and The Wind in the Willows worthy for consideration are non-discriminating pip-squeaks happy to watch rodents rappelling walls and scampering along air ducts as the clock ticks and computer keyboards clack.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, G-Force is thrumming with action - it's an inane perpetual-motion machine of car chases (and motorized exercise ball chases), projectile kitchen appliances, and, yes, a towering Transformers-like robot run amok. Good thing the 9-inch-tall furball action heroes are actually computer-animated. Real rodents wouldn't have lasted through the opening minutes. (Grown-ups in the audience may not either.)

The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis is onboard as the human FBI guy who has whipped his crew of guinea pigs, a mole, and a housefly into a stealth group of animal agents - and who's under pressure from his G-men bosses (headed by Will Arnett) to scuttle the entire operation. To prove their mettle and their merit, Darwin (voice of Sam Rockwell), Blaster (Tracy Morgan), Juarez (Penelope Cruz), Speckles the computer-whiz mole (Nicolas Cage), and Mooch the fly (Dee Bradley Baker) set out to expose megalomaniacal housewares industrialist Leonard Saber (the entertainingly sinister Bill Nighy). There's something evil about Saber's cappuccino machine.

And so, off they go, with stops in a pet shop - where they meet a goofy hamster (Steve Buscemi) - and to a neighborhood home, where the guinea-pig gang are befriended by a gizmo-happy boy and a little girl who wants to play dress-up.

There's also some dangerous business with a Doberman, lots of hacking-into-the-system hugger-mugger, and the usual believe-in-yourself message. The script comes from the Wibberleys - that's how husband and wife Cormac and Marianne Wibberley bill themselves. The duo are aces when it comes to meaningless action: Wibberleys credits include Bad Boys II, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and National Treasure. The director, Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr., is a veteran visual-effects maestro making his feature debut. The 3D effects are nothing to write home about - or text-message home on your PDA.EndText