After last year’s close to the High School Musical series, the now world famous cast are faced with the daunting task of carving a career outside of the hugely popular Disney franchise. Zac Efron went into safe territory with teen comedy ‘17 Again’, Lucas Grabeel went into legit drama with the Oscar nominated ‘Milk’, and Vanessa Hudgens has hardly strayed at all with music movie ‘Bandslam’. Now it’s the turn of Ashley Tisdale, the one member of the cast to show some solo potential, to make her mark in ‘Aliens In The Attic’.

The Pearson family move into their dream vacation home which, unbeknownst to the family, is the target of a group of aliens who have just crashed to Earth. Casting a spell which controls Ricky (Robert Hoffman), the boyfriend of teenage daughter Bethany (Tisdale). The five younger members of the Pearson clan must use the help of the one kind alien, the geeky Sparks, to stop the other three aliens taking over the world.

Granted, it’s not a hugely intricate plot (although anyone seeing a film called ‘Aliens In The Attic’ shouldn’t be under too many illusions), and ‘Wall*E’ it is certainly not. Almost every scene is played for laughs, the SFX are not very impressive. Yet, somehow, it manages to keep you interested for the duration - which, at just 85 mins, knows exactly when to wrap things up. The laughs are simple, and some of them miss the mark, but there’s no denying some of them will raise a smile. The fight between the Pearson’s grandmother and a possessed Ricky ("Game On!"; "No… Game Over!") in particular is a guilty pleasure.

The cast themselves are a mixed bag. No-one’s bad as such, but there are few standouts. Hoffman is genuinely funny in many places (see above), and the younger kids provide a good point of view for what will surely be a pre-teen audience. It’s hard to see what purpose Tisdale serves apart from being a name to put on the poster, but she wheels out the bratty teen routine with enthusiasm.

Never likely to have many fans over the age of ten, but as a Saturday morning kids movie it’s perfectly fine. The laughs keep your mind off of the slightness of the whole thing, and the sense of fun the film carries throughout makes it hard to dislike. An entertaining, if very light, family film.