Capture the Flag (film)

Mike Goldwing, a plucky, determined 12-year-old boy, is the son and grandson of NASA astronauts. His grandfather Frank Goldwing is a once revered, but now forgotten retired astronaut, who lives his days isolated from his family in an old age home for former astronauts after missing out on his big chance to fly to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as a part of the Apollo XI mission.

An eccentric Texan billionaire named Richard Carson III devises a plan to fly to the moon, to steal the moon's vast mineral resources (Helium-3), and destroy the American flag planted by the Apollo XI team trying to prove that America had never visited the moon and that he was the first person on the Moon in order to own it.

The President of the United States orders NASA to plan another space flight to the moon to beat Carson, so that he won't rewrite history, and at the same time prevent Carson from obtaining Helium-3 from the moon which can be used as both a new powerful energy source and a weapon of mass destruction to threaten any city which refused to buy this energy.

Upon hearing the news, Carson hires a saboteur to sabotage the NASA mission. Firstly, during a test maneuver, the saboteur, who is posing as a cameraman, flips a switch, opening the fuel door on the test lander, emptying the fuel and causing it to crash, injuring Mike's father, Scott. Thankfully, Mike and his friends, Marty and Amy, manage to escape unhurt. Scott blames Frank for not refuelling the tank and for his leg fracture, despite his wife's protests.

Mike decides to go to the moon as a stowaway on a rejuvenated Saturn V rocket in order to undo the 'Goldwing Curse'. Mike, Marty and Amy try to sneak inside the launch area, but Marty gets caught after being attacked by alligators in the marshes surrounding the launch pad.

Suddenly, the launch gets sabotaged by the same saboteur from before, and this causes the rocket to launch much earlier than planned. Carson assumes that by launching the rocket early, no one would be in the rocket to man it, meaning that no one would be there on the moon to stop him from mining the powerful Helium-3.

Accompanied by his grandfather, Amy and Marty (at the control center on Earth), and their clever lizard named Igor, Mike blasts off to the moon to capture the flag and reunite his family. Carson tries to destroy the space craft in which the trio are travelling. The trio along with Igor, risking their lives on the moon, with assistance from Marty on Earth, capture the flag to reveal as proof that man had walked on the moon to the whole world. Amy links her phone camera to the antenna while Carson reveals his evil plans to them, and consequently the world. Realizing that if he got back to Earth he would still win, they stop him by sabotaging his futuristic Helium-3 mines.

Mike even learns that Frank had been ruled out of the first mission because he had caught chicken pox from his son Scott. Frank at first blamed Scott for him missing out on such a great opportunity to go to space, but he then realized that it was not Scott's fault and he was a failure for blaming it on his own son. Feeling guilty about this, Frank decided to leave his family, declaring that Scott would be better off without him.

After planting the flag back in its place, they all return safely to Earth with Mike's plans to reunite his family and break the 'Goldwing Curse' accomplished as Frank and Scott have reconciled and made peace with each other for the first time in many years.

In a post-credits scene, Carson is seen drifting through space with his assistant Steve Gigs, who is revealed to be an android created by Carson's other late assistant Bill Gags, whom he had accidentally disintegrated when he tested his Helium-3 weapon. As Carson forgives Gigs for killing Gags, he is annoyed by an inexhaustible battery powered robot that he had used on the moon (despite the fact that the very invention of the battery was his own).

This Spanish computer-animated science-fiction adventure comedy film was produced by 4 Cats Pictures and animated by Lightbox Entertainment. It used a 3D animation with Adobe After Effects (visual effects), Autodesk Maya (computer animation), Nuke (compositing) and ZBrush (sculpting).

• Capture the Flag on IMDb
• Capture the Flag at Box Office Mojo
• Capture the Flag at Rotten Tomatoes