Mars Needs Moms

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Mars Needs Moms

PG

2011

1h 28m

Kids & Family

Comedy

Sci-Fi

Adventure

Animation

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Popcornmeter

34%

Tomatometer

111 Reviews

40%

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25,000+ Ratings

Milo is a 9-year-old boy who has a lot on his mind; he has monster movies to watch, comic books to read and all other kinds of fun stuff to accomplish. He definitely does not have time to do homework or eat his vegetables. He's getting tired of his mom nagging him to do these things, and his mom is tired of nagging. But just as Milo is telling his mom that life would be more fun without her, Martians kidnap her. Milo stows away on their spaceship, determined to launch a rescue.

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Critics Consensus

The cast is solid and it's visually well-crafted, but Mars Needs Moms suffers from a lack of imagination and heart.

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Jim Schembri

The Age (Australia)

What really sells this fabulous, kid-friendly 3D adventure to anybody over eight (no offense, kids) is its astonishing visuals, which uses motion-capture technology to a degree that surpasses what we saw in Avatar.

Rated: 4/5

Apr 13, 2011

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Jake Wilson

The Age (Australia)

The credited director is Simon Wells (The Time Machine), but the grotesque characters and dark action bear the Zemeckis stamp.

Rated: 1.5/5

Apr 13, 2011

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Philip French

Guardian

Children are unlikely to enjoy it, and parents will be aching for a few stiff drinks in a Mars bar long before it's over.

Apr 10, 2011

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Brian Eggert

Deep Focus Review

An unsightly experience of motion-capture computer animation comprised of far too many so-called technological advances.

Rated: 1/4

Jul 31, 2023

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Richard Propes

TheIndependentCritic.com

A decent flick that could have been so much more.

Rated: 2.0/4.0

Sep 16, 2020

Full Review

Debbie Lynn Elias

Behind The Lens

I just love Simon Wells' sense of adventure and with Mars Needs Moms, he soars.

Nov 16, 2019

Full Review

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Ry R.

Mars Needs Moms is Disney’s biggest failure yet. Some of the animation is good…but the character designs are so unnatural! I could tell they worked hard to make it realistic…but why can’t it be live action! From the trailers…I knew this movie wouldn’t be that good. Then it took me a few weeks to get over it, so I watched it on vacation…I’ll give it that it’s enjoyable at times…but this movie is not really taking the emotional parts seriously! It just is so wacky, until it realizes it should be emotional…but many other movies did it better, maybe not the worst in history, but it’s just sad to see that Disney failed big time here because it’s still one of my favorite studios.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

09/01/25

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Paul S

The overambitious animation style resulted in wonky visuals. Despite this shortcoming, I thought this movie was amazing! The story was heartwarming and compelling, and it was so much fun to watch. I definitely recommend it!

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

08/06/25

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Ethan G

Everyone hates this Disney animation design, saying it’s the worst. But I actually like it — it brings back old memories from when I was a kid.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/02/25

Full Review

naim c

One of the ugliest movies I've watched. The mocap animation looks really bad, the character designs are worse and painful to watch, especially the aliens. The story itself was pretty bad and the movie didn't explain a lot of things. My eyes are still bleeding.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

12/12/24

Full Review

Dale R

Based on a book by Berkeley Breathed, the mother of a young boy named Milo is abducted by Martians. The animation in this film was done by ImageMovers Digital by using motion capture and while the body movements worked, the face expressions did not work. This creates some off putting characters, though during the credits they show behind the scenes of how they captured the motion of the actors. The writing in this movie is horrible, none of the jokes land and the movie as a whole feels like it was improvised from beginning to end instead of storyboarded. The Martians do have an unique and interesting design and the animators did a great job on some backgrounds, especially the Earth ones. There are good reasons why this movie bombed in theaters, save yourself the headache and skip watching this movie.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

07/07/24

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Audience Member

“Visually well-crafted”… yeah right. Isn’t this the plot of the Jimmy Neutron movie?

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

06/13/24

Full Review

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Simon Wells

Director

Seth Green

Milo

Dan Fogler

Gribble

Elisabeth Harnois

Ki

Joan Cusack

Mom

Mindy Sterling

Supervisor

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Synopsis

Milo is a 9-year-old boy who has a lot on his mind; he has monster movies to watch, comic books to read and all other kinds of fun stuff to accomplish. He definitely does not have time to do homework or eat his vegetables. He's getting tired of his mom nagging him to do these things, and his mom is tired of nagging. But just as Milo is telling his mom that life would be more fun without her, Martians kidnap her. Milo stows away on their spaceship, determined to launch a rescue.

Director: Simon Wells
Producer: Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Steve Starkey, Steven Boyd
Screenwriter: Simon Wells, Wendy Wells
Distributor: Walt Disney
Production Co: ImageMovers
Rating: PG (Sci-Fi Action and Peril)
Genre: Kids & Family, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Animation
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 11, 2011, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA): $21.4M
Runtime: 1h 28m

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