The Pearson family is a generic family [laid-back dad, middling hyper mom, mathlete son, boy crazy teen daughter and cute as a bug pre-school daughter] who leave their average home to spend a week in a generic touristy town where they are joined by an ingratiating uncle , his slightly bullying eldest son and two mischievous twin boys. These are the Earth’s only hope to stave off an alien invasion – well, except for the adults who are susceptible to the aliens’ mind-control devices.
Our heroes are Tom [Carter Jenkins], the mathlete [who’s in trouble because he deliberately let his grades slip to avoid being tortured at school]; Jake [Austin Butler], the bully [who turns out to be okay when confronted with a reason to be heroic]; Art [Henri Young] and Lee [Regan Young], the mischievous ones; Hannah [Ashley Boettcher], the pre-schooler [and something of a secret weapon], and Bethany [Ashley Tisdale] as the boy-crazy, self-absorbed one [who has problems with her boyfriend].
In the red corner are Tazer [voiced by Thomas Hayden Church], the commander; Sparks [Josh Peck], the engineer; Skip [J.K. Simmons], the brawn, and Razor [Kari Wahlgren] the competent one – four half-pint aliens who are the advance party for the abovementioned alien invasion.
The clueless – and therefore disposable for all intents and purposes – adults are Stuart Pearson [Kevin Nealon]; his wife, Nina [Gillian Vigman]; his brother, Nathan [Andy Richter]; his mother, Nana Rose [Doris Roberts]; Sheriff Doug Armstrong [Tim Meadows], and Bethany’s boyfriend, Ricky [Robert Hoffman], who is older than he claims – and not as nice as he’d have one believe.
The battle involves everything from a paintball gun and a spud machine gun to an anti-gravity grenade. The action is reasonably fast-paced; the adults – most of them, at least – are quick removed from the scene by a transparent ruse, and Nana Rose gets to ninja out on Ricky’s sorry @$$. [Roberts claims that, except for the wire work, she did all her own stunts – if that’s the case, then all I can say is, Cool!]. I cannot tell you how Hannah becomes a secret weapon – that would give away a key plot point.
Aliens in the Attic [I much preferred the original title, They Came From Upstairs, original poster pictured above] is a light as air, fluffy as cotton candy confection that is already a videogame. It’s well made and may well be a star-maker for Hoffman, who steals every scene he’s in – whether he’s himself, or not. It is, in short, the kind of film that Disney made in the fifties and sixties [if with slightly more bite]. Like those movies, it’s unapologetically silly – and reasonably entertaining.
Final Grade: B-