Planet 51 (**)

Directed by: Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad (among others)

Starring (voices): Dwayne Johnson, Gary Oldman , John Cleese, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Sean William Scott,

Seen: January 7^th 2010

** Out of ****

As far as animated movies go, Planet 51 can do worse. But not a whole lot worse though. It never manages to truly capture you in quite the same way every single Pixar movie has you from minute one. The movie has some endearing moments, with a multitude of popular references to science fiction movies from the past, too bad that the handful of kids who will see this will probably not be accompanied by too many grown-ups who will appreciate them, of which some include E.T. (bike across moon), Alien (pet dog), 2001: A Space Odyssey (theme-song hummed by character), Star Wars and Terminator (direct quotes), The Right Stuff, and many more.

Planet 51 is similar to earth in almost every way, and more particularly 1950’s America, with the inhabitants being the only significant difference. Their cars hover, but they have the classic old-time design of cars here on earth. Their secret army base is Base 9, where our famous one is Area 51. The rest is pretty much suburban America in the 50’s, barbeque afternoons and teenagers falling in love. Charles ‘Chuck’ Baker (Johnson) is a human astronaut from earth who ends up on Planet 51 – where he is the alien to the local population, pretty much E.T. in reverse.

The local military, under the leadership of General Grawl (Oldman), sees him as a massive threat, and want to capture and interrogate/destroy him. This job would come down to the mad scientist Professor Kripple (Cleese), who is a pretty clichéd mad scientist, only funny because he is voiced by John Cleese. But the teenager who Chuck first makes contact with, Lem (Long), is sympathetic to his cause, as he realises he is no threat to their planet, he only needs to get back to his spaceship before it returns to his ship in orbit and back to earth.

Lem is also in love with Neera (Biel), who is friends with Glar, a hippie who makes everything into song. Chuck helps him out with some dating advice which does not work, of course, as an arrogant astronaut quite probably knows nothing of real love, but Lem tries some of it that fails miserably. The movie is chock full of small things such as this love story sub-plot that just doesn’t work – these small plot-points never really support the bigger story to lift it out of alien clichés, which is unfortunate, since Planet 51 could have worked so much better.

Obviously everything works out perfectly in the end, but the movie just isn’t memorable at all, I couldn’t completely recall the start of the movie when I walked out of the cinema. As far as quick, brainless entertainment goes, Planet 51 is not a bad way to spend 91 minutes, but the fact of the matter is that it simply isn’t anything more than that. And to think that anyone can believe even for a second that an astronaut can be such a monumentally narcissistic idiot is an insult. So if you’re really hungry and desperate for an animated film with a few quick quips, then go see Planet 51. But a better use for this: rent it for the kids on those nights that you want them occupied in front of the TV – to give yourself some freedom.