Release Date:  August 15, 2008

As the third space-themed, family-friendly film this summer, Fly Me to the Moon falls somewhere in between the far superior Wall·E and the lackluster Space Chimps in terms of sheer quality.

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Touted as the first computer-generated animated film built exclusively for 3-D presentation, Fly Me to the Moon definitely has some stylistic panache—especially when compared to the flat Saturday-morning-cartoon feel of Space Chimps, which sported far more celebrity wattage for the characters' voices, but not much momentum as a whole.

But the lack of humor and a recycled history lesson won't exactly inspire a future generation of wannabe astronauts after watching Fly Me to the Moon either. If anything, it'll provide an excuse for parents to sneak in a nap because most likely, their little ones will have peacefully fallen asleep once the elusive thrill of 3-D technology has quickly worn off.

With three likeable-enough fly (as in the insects, not the street slang for cool) protagonists, the movie has a promising-enough start, though. Kicking things off, we're introduced to the requisite dreamer of the bunch, Nat (Trevor Gagnon), his brainy buddy aptly named I.Q. (Philip Daniel Bolden) and Scooter (David Gore), who ends up serving as nothing more than the token public service announcement against childhood obesity since he's always on the prowl for his next meal—even if he's just eaten his last.

While the details of their respective day-to-day fly existence are fairly mundane, however, Nat is confident that life won't be that way for long. Much like his wise old grandpa (Christopher Lloyd), who loves to repeatedly tell the story of how he saved Amelia Earhart during her pioneering transatlantic flight in 1932, (hint:  it involves a whole lot of snot—ick!), Nat's got quite an adventurous spirit even if his somewhat annoying Mom (Kelly Ripa) continually reminds him that "dreamers get swatted."

Undeterred by his Mom's warnings, however, when Nat hears about the first flight to the moon in progress—the Apollo 11 mission—he's still eager to hitch a ride out of this world. Since Nat doesn't want to venture into the final frontier alone, he eventually convinces a reluctant I.Q. and an even more reluctant Scooter to join him in the fun. Then sneaking out in the middle of the night right before blast-off, the mission is complete when the flies sneak onboard after craftily attaching themselves to the astronauts' spacesuits.