As opening promotional gambits go, “co-scripted by one of the writers of Madagascar” is hardly the most surefire line to have the summer-holidaying hordes turning their backs on Harry Potter and the Transformers.

How about “co-starring the most important member of High School Musical that isn’t Zac or Vanessa” or “from the director of Like Mike, the longest sports shoe advert ever made (if you’re struggling to guess the brand, they could have called it Swoosh)"?

Of course it doesn’t really matter, since there are only two types of people in this world: those who will happily watch a semi-CG romp called Aliens In The Attic, and adults.

With the title leaving no room for mystery, the film gets straight into the business at hand with the Pearson clan congregating at a country retreat for a family holiday.

While mum and dad settle in downstairs with Uncle Nate and Grandma, eldest daughter Bethany (Tisdale) cosies up to her obnoxious boyfriend Ricky (Robert Hoffman).

Which just leaves 15-year-old geek Tom (Carter Jenkins), his button-cute little sister Hannah and their cousins – surf dude Jake and woefully barbered twins Art and Lee – to deal with the four pint-sized ‘Zirconians’ who attacked them on the roof.

In a scenario not unlike kids-vs-beasties adventure The Spiderwick Chronicles, the ensuing battle sees Tom and the gang trying to outwit the cosmic villains (variously voiced by JK Simmons and Thomas Haden Church) before they can call the rest of the little green men.

It works in their favour that the Zirconian’s fiendish mind control plugs only turn grown humans into puppets, the resulting humiliation of Ricky being completed when he gets his butt kicked by the zombie-fied Grandma.

It also helps that the aliens’ chief engineer is a good guy. It’s a dead heat in the cute-off between him and wee Hannah.

Older viewers may be more interested to know that the aforementioned writer - Mark Burton – is a regular contributor to the BBC's topical wag-show Have I Got News For You.

With cynicism in short supply, presumably it was he who introduced the arcane rotary telephone which meets with stares of disbelief, and the movie’s best line: “This isn’t X-Box, it’s real… like Wii!”

But really this is just a giant slurp of cinematic Sunny D, quenching the thirst for instant fun with CGI sweeteners and a fast-acting concoction of other slapstick additives.

When the burps are over, there’s no doubt that everyone will be racing upstairs… the kids to see what they can find in the loft and their parents to see what’s in the medicine cabinet.

Elliott Noble