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Aliens in the Attic

Directed by John Schultz

Starring Carter Jenkins

and Austin Butler

Classification: PG

*

In the battle to win the hearts of families this summer, Disney armed a squad of guinea pigs. The strategy proved effective, the 3D G-Force knocking the latest Harry Potter thriller from the top spot last weekend.

But it's highly unlikely this weekend will be won by Twentieth Century Fox's Aliens in the Attic, a family adventure flick in which a gang of pint-sized extra-terrestrials' plan to conquer the world is thwarted by a bunch of crafty kids on vacation.

While some tweens may be moderately amused, the action that unfolds in an enormous isolated summer house rented by the Pearson clan follows a mostly tired and predictable path, with music that resembles one of the Harry Potter themes and story elements snatched from family fare like The Goonies, Home Alone, E.T. and others.

The two Pearson families have three kids apiece, plus there's a grandmother (Doris Roberts) and a local cop (Tim Meadows) who drops in, not to mention four attic-bound aliens that bicker annoyingly like stock characters in a lame family sitcom.

This ungainly group makes for a lot of wasted comic potential, including that of Saturday Night L ive vets Meadows and Kevin Nealon, playing one clueless dad (yawn), and of Conan O'Brien sidekick Andy Richter, playing the other boozehound dad. The tween crowd will be disappointed they don't see more of Ashley Tisdale, of High School Music franchise fame, who spends most of the movie in a bikini, but off screen; she plays the stereotypically crabby older sister smitten with a college boy.

As the smarmy boyfriend Ricky, dancer-turned-actor Robert Hoffman practically steals the movie. Ricky, who has duped Nealon's dad into believing he's an upstanding young high-school senior, gets "stung" by an implant device and spends most of the movie as a virtual puppet controlled either by the aliens or by one of the kids, depending on who has possession of the handy remote control. Hoffman's rubbery face and gymnastic moves deliver the movie's few genuine laughs.

Otherwise, the game is mostly alien technology versus the clever homemade weaponry of the cousins, who must protect their parents from getting hit with the alien implants (which, conveniently, don't work on underage humans).

With the fate of the planet at stake, the two male teens (Carter Jenkins as the brainy "mathlete" and Austin Butler as his hipper cousin) inspire their younger siblings to rise to the challenge of defeating the invaders, the older sister finally seeing reason and pitching in for the showdown.

The entire aliens versus youngsters battle may unfold in less than a day, but to parents hoping for some decent big-screen family entertainment Aliens in the Attic will seem like the Hundred Years' War.