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Written by David Noik, Edited by Luke Brown

As a brief disclaimer this is written as a devil’s advocate piece, and I do indeed enjoy and admire Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950). The main reason I chose it as a competitor to G-Force (Hoyt Yeatman, 2009) is because it is a highly respected film which I have had the privilege of studying in the past year.

G-Force is rated 5.1/10 on IMDB, 22% on Rotten Tomatoes and 2.1/5 on Letterboxd.

Sunset Boulevard is rated 8.4/10 on IMDB, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.4 on Letterboxd.

G-Force is a 2009 live-action/CGI comedy-adventure film directed by Hoyt Yeatman. It is an action spy thriller aimed for kids, but still entertaining for kids at heart. The film follows a team of highly trained and technologically advanced guinea pigs who work as secret agents for the U.S. government. The main characters are Darwin (Sam Rockwell), Juarez (Penélope Cruz), Blaster (Tracy Morgan), and Speckles (Nicolas Cage), who is a mole. Together, they form the “G-Force” team and are led by Ben (Zach Galifianakis), their human handler. The plot revolves around the team’s mission to stop an evil billionaire named Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy) who plans to use household appliances to take over the world. The guinea pigs (and Nicola Cage, the mole) must uncover his plans and save the day. On the other side of the argument we have Sunset Boulevard. Released in 1950, Sunset Boulevard tells the captivating story of an aging silent film star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and a struggling screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden).

Based on the description of G-Force , one may think that this film was made by an imaginative 10 year old kid. While this is not the case, the film was actually based on the director’s 5-year old son, Hoyt Yeatman IV, according to Zack Galifianakis and Will Arnett on the Smartless podcast. For a kids movie made in 2009 the CGI animation holds up surprisingly well, so at the very least an audience can watch secret agent guinea pigs (and a mole) without getting a migraine. The humour is also certainly directed towards children but the lack of fart jokes and general buffoonery means that the film is always delightful to watch and hardly cringeworthy.

Nonetheless, I remember loving this movie as a kid and I still love it today. The reason why I adored it as kid was because there were cute guinea pigs, explosions, a dance sequence at the end and Steve Buscemi as a Napoleon complexed hamster. The reason why I love it now is because all of these elements, while non-nuanced in any shape or form, is what films were created for! (and again, it has Steve Buscemi as a Napoleon complexed hamster). Within Sunset Boulevard, it is difficult, if not impossible, to deny the profound critique on toxic Hollywood, not to mention the layered characters and precise plot. But does it utilise the medium of film to its full extent? The amalgamation of score, performance and cinematography cannot be ignored but I believe a theatrical play would suffice and excel as equally successful to the film. The performance and score, which I would argue to be the greatest strength of the film, could be captured extremely well in a theatrical setting, with the only slight problem being difficulty in seeing the actor’s facial expressions. This is only a half-issue to begin with but can be solved by having a live camera on stage display her face for close-ups on a screen next to the stage.

Alternatively, G-Force undeniably utilises the filmic medium to the point where it even abuses it. Firstly, G-Force has a star-studded cast which is quite laughable, considering the premise of the film. Stars including Zach Galifianakis, Kelli Garner, Bill Nighy, and Will Arnett and voices including Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz, Jon Favreau, Nicolas Cage, and Steve Buscemi are all present throughout the film. People often watch films to see their favourite actors, perhaps because they trust their acting style or perhaps they just want to hear their favourite celebrity’s voice once more. Either way the film’s wide cast enables this desire for anyone who’s seen a movie in the last 20 years. Secondly, the soundtrack. While Sunset Boulevard’s score is dramatic, intense and provocative, its not exactly adrenaline pumping, singalong or fun. Meet the score of G-Force, which possesses 2000s drunken karaoke hits including the Black Eyed Peas: I Gotta Feeling, Will.I.Am’s Boom Boom Pow, Flo Rida’s Jump, Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, The Pussycat Doll’s Don’t Cha and multiple other party anthems. Again, these songs help max out the movie experience and unapologetically, unsubtly allows the audience to turn off their brains and simply enjoy the ride, ignoring any plot inconsistencies (not that there are any in the airtight G-Force). Finally, and most importantly, G-Force is a film which cannot be effectively replicated in other mediums. There are CGI Guinea Pigs (voiced by famous actors) fighting CGI evil electronic devices. In case you are not understanding my point, there is a scene where Jon Favreau Guinea Pig and Sam Rockwell Guinea Pig start inspecting the coffee maker and suddenly the coffee maker transforms into a killer robot and they must kill or be killed. I think Sam Rockwell Guinea Pig perfectly encapsulates my argument in one line: “Yippee Kay Yay Coffee Maker”.

It has been evident from some of the very first films, such as the 1894 film: Boxing Cats or the 1898 film The Four Troublesome Heads, that movies were created to bring imagination into reality, even if said imagination is idiotic and pointless. To take dreams and visually create them, no matter how dumb they may seem, has been inherent in film since its creation and I believe this is one of the key distinctions between film and other mediums; film can be enjoyed mindlessly. G-Force is the pinnacle of this. Sunset Boulevard is not.

Video Evidence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bVY_UspXyc – G-Force Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30ITjlywJs – The fight scene I talk about in G-Force

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k52pLvVmmkU – Boxing Cats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKQRV4XKZt4 – The Four Troublesome Heads