Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for the film Space Chimps (click to enlarge), fresh from one of the primates that brought you Shrek. Featuring a voice cast that includes Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Stanley Tucci and Patrick Warburton, Space Chimps follows Ham III (Samberg), the grandson of the first ever chimp in space, who's recruited by a scheming senator (Tucci) for a dangerous mission to help thwart a powerful tyrant (Daniels) from taking over an alien world. Of course, Ham III will have a little help from his friends along the way. You can scope out the first trailer for Space Chimps over on Moviefone, then buckle yourself in and prepare to go bananas for Space Chimps when it touches down in theaters on July 18.

This week week I'm feeling like one of the Scooby gang. Each trailer I see provides a clue that leads me to the next. For example:

Space Chimps
"From one of the primates who brought you Shrek," says the trailer. Obviously it's not the funny one. This computer animated tale of chimps being launched into space is chock full of jokes from the "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" school of humor. There's the slow-mo walk from The Right Stuff, a slip on a banana peel, and a pratfall followed by "that's gotta hurt." Younger kids may enjoy this one, but the string of cliche jokes is quite irritating. I begrudgingly cracked a smile only once, which is a good indicator that I should avoid this one. As is required by law for all animated features, Patrick Wharburton is one of the voice actors (I love his work as Brock Samson on The Venture Brothers). Monika first posted about this one last June.

The man who brought us The Addams Family, Get Shorty and Men in Black is leaving live action for a bit to take a test drive in his first bit of animation. The latest news from Variety is that producer/director Barry Sonnenfeld is going to produce an animated comedy called Space Chimps through Vanguard Animation and Starz Media, for 20th Century Fox to distribute. Apparently, production on this movie began last fall, and he was then helping out as a creative consultant. The project was written, and is being directed by, Kirk De Micco (Racing Stripes), and it's simply about a group of astronaut chimps who are on a mission in space -- accompanied by music from Dave Stewart and the Blue Man Group. This news is eh, whatever. It could be cute, it could be Space Jam, it could be terrible, it could be any number of things!

That being said, there's a chance for some sort of goodness considering the voice cast for the 2008 production. First, there is Jeff Daniels, the guy in everything from Terms of Endearment to Sonnenfeld's RV -- and I imagine the producer is also responsible for the other RV alum -- Cheryl Hines and Kristin Chenoweth. Then there's the SNL guy whose popularity is skyrocketing -- Andy Samberg -- who I can only hope will lend some of his music video humor to the movie, and his television cast-mate Kenan Thompson. To art things up a bit, there's the Tooch, Stanley Tucci, and then there's the quintessential man-voice. The roar of The Tick, the power behind Brock Sampson -- Patrick Warburton.