Real spying squirrels, dolphins helped inspire 'G-Force'

— -- Hollywood has a curious crush on science, seen this year in movies such as Star Trek (anti-matter engines), Angels & Demons (anti-matter bombs) and Transformers (a critical bomb).

The latest dose of oddball silver screen science comes this week with G-Force, a talking guinea pig spy movie from Walt Disney Pictures. The science in the movie — talking guinea pig ninjas save the world from evil — is nuts, as director Hoyt Yeatman freely acknowledges. But he points out a lot of military animal science is out there, and the movie reflects some real world science.

"I actually had the idea from my 5-year-old son dressing up a guinea pig in gear," Yeatman says. But after a year and a half of researching a script, "I began to see there were a lot of crazy things really out there."

The result is a Jerry Bruckheimer Films parody of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, sort of Mission Impossible meets Rin Tin Tin. The guinea pigs are squad boss Darwin (voiced by Sam Rockwell), weapons nut Blaster (voiced by Tracy Morgan) and martial arts vixen Juarez (voiced by Penelope Cruz). Plus a star-nosed mole computer geek, Speckles (voiced by Nicolas Cage, of course.)

Squirrels, not guinea pigs, were arrested as spies in Iran two years ago, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, after border guards spotted their eavesdropping equipment. "Squirrel espionage would not be without precedent," noted Wired's Sharon Weinberger, at the time. "Other members of the animal kingdom have been tagged as possible spies, including pigeons and cats."

Indeed, from carrier pigeons, to suicidal dogs equipped with anti-tank mines in World War II, to dolphins used to patrol waters in the Vietnam War, armies have recruited animals for all sorts of missions.