'Aliens in the Attic': A cute diversion, nothing more

A children's movie mix of live-action and animation, "Aliens in the Attic" has a few positive messages, a few laughs and a few comic throwdowns, one involving Doris Roberts of "Everybody Loves Raymond" going all "Crouching Tiger" on an alien-controlled frat boy.

Hilarious? No. But will you hate your kids for begging to see it? Nooooo.

An extended family gathers in a big Victorian rental home in the country. There's Tom, the "Math-lete" (Carter Jenkins), Jake the alpha male (Austin Butler), Tom's dating-a-college-guy sister (Ashley Tisdale of "High School Musical"), baby sister Hannah (Ashley Boettcher) and The Twins (Henri and Regan Young).

They're the ones who stumble across four diminutive aliens (animated) who have landed in the attic at the vanguard of a Zirconian invasion force.

The adults (Roberts, Kevin Nealon and Andy Richter among them) are out of the loop. So's the sheriff (Tim Meadows).

It's up to the kids — who can resist the mind-and-body control ray that turns select adults into zombie puppets — to save the Earth.

Stupid movie, right? But kid-friendly, as the children work out weapons to fight with, ways to fend off the beasties (Thomas Haden Church, Josh Peck and J.K. Simmons do voices) and funny things they can do with the adults who no longer control their actions, such as manipulate granny (Roberts) into a serious knockdown drag-out with Robert Hoffman, who plays the frat-boy love interest for Tisdale's character.

Hoffman steals the picture, turning himself into a human marionette who wears one extreme goofy expression after another.

Parents will chuckle at kids who can't fathom how to use a rotary phone (sloooooow dialing) and who relate everything to a video game.

"This isn't X-Box, it's real! Like Wii!"