Sat Nov 21st - Planet 51(2009)

Planet 51 (2009)
(In Theatres as of November 20th)

Oh yeah, so there will probably be a good bit of kids movies in this thing too. I have one of those kid things around who loves kids movies and he has a father who also loves kids movies. Course, kiddo loves Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters too, but there you go....

Ok, so onto the movie, Planet 51. It seems like there is ultimately the Pixar/Iron Giant rule, you have to be either as innovative and theatrically brilliant as Pixar always is, or, you have to be as perfect as Iron Giant is, or, well, both. Anything below that ends up being middle ground fodder, some good, some lousy. Speaking of lousy, I never want to miss an opportunity (in writing a kids movie review) to mention how much I hated Over the Hedge. God that was awful. There was one good line. In the whole damned thing. One good line. Thats it. Ugh. Anyway, back to the Pixar/Iron Giant thing, you hope for things that are pretty well done (Cloudy with a chance of meatballs was one, Astroboy was another), nothing earth shattering but good nonetheless. Planet 51 kind of fits into that category.

Its overall a pretty decent kids movie with some adult humor and references that aren't too over the top. I get very wary of that, too much in the wink wink nudge nudge areas. Subtle stuff is great, but blaring shout outs get old really fast. Planet 51, thankfully, doesn't go too heavy into these, settling for more thematic references to The Day the Earth Stood Still and E.T. . The overall message is pretty easy to swallow, nothing too heavy to deal with in the theme department. Planet 51s greatest achievement is also its greatest setback. The pacing. Too often, childrens movies are done at about 90 miles per hour with no character development at all. Planet 51 takes its time, almost too much so, in wandering through its plot (US Astronaut lands on alien planet and is, the alien). This might sound absurd, but this is a movie that didn't have to be animated. Nothing that happens in it really leans on the animators. Its just a movie that ends up being animated. They could have just as easily done it live action with Rick Baker makeup or some such. So because of this, you spend a lot of time waiting for something extraordinary and get, essentially, an ordinary movie.

The voice acting from Dwayne Johnson (The Rock Obama), Jessica Biel, Justin Long and Gary Oldman are all very good. John Cleese plays a dilusional scientist that would have been much better served with better writing. His laugh lines fall flat for whatever reason, which is ridiculous considering the man performing them. I loved the 50s theme to the thing, that for some reason its the 1950s on their planet. There really is no reason for it, it just kind of is. Its cute and not particularly deep. Kind of like the movie as a whole. I guess it all comes down to ones ability to settle back and enjoy it for what it is.