Director: Jorge Blanco Starring: voices of Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long, Jessica Biel, Seann William Scott, Gary Oldman Running Time: 1 hour, 31 minutes Theatrical Release: November 20, 2009 Shop for Planet 51 Merchandise

Plot Summary

Animated sci-fi tale set on “Planet 51,” whose inhabitants live in fear of an alien invasion. Their paranoia is realized when astronaut Capt. Charles “Chuck” Baker arrives from Earth. Befriended by a young resident, the astronaut has to avoid capture in order to recover his spaceship and return home. (from MovieWeb.com)

Film Review

For a good portion of 2009, moviegoers have been seeing teasers and trailers for a unique animated experience called Planet 51. The most popular teaser shows a fully-suited United States astronaut as he lands on a foreign planet and plants an American flag into the ground. When he looks around him, he sees that the entire alien planet is functioning like a human one, except that the inhabitants are green alien creatures. Most of the promos for the film don’t give too many details away, which leaves the actual viewing of Planet 51 to be mostly a surprise. The end result is an entertaining feature film for nearly all ages.

What’s really fun about Planet 51, which I didn’t know until I was actually in the theater watching the movie play out, is that the film is shot entirely from the perspective of the alien planet… which resides in a sort of 1950’s era. A present-day American astronaut then “invades” their planet and what unfolds is sort of a mix of The Day The Earth Stood Still and War Of The Worlds, only backwards. The young aliens of the planet are mostly obsessed with visitors from another planet – obviously human-like aliens that might come and invade their planet. The film’s central alien is a teenage boy named Lem, voiced by Justin Long (Galaxy Quest, Die Hard 4, those Mac Vs. PC commercials), who feels like everything is starting to go right in life… that is, until the “alien” shows up. All mayhem indeed breaks loose when U.S. astronaut Chuck Baker (voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) arrives. And he’s quite the pompous and arrogant goof you might not entirely expect him to be. To assist Chuck is a miniature land rover that acts like a cross between a pet dog and WALL-E, who steals many of the scenes its in, despite frequently bringing to mind the Pixar film that features said titular robot.

The idea alone of turning Planet 51 itself into a human-like planet sounds like fun, but setting it in our 1950’s era really opens things up for a whole mess of opportunities and even pop culture references to come into play. Chuck is not only caught off guard by such an alien race, but the fact that they’re all stuck in the 50’s. From the classic style monster movies the aliens love to watch, to the town square (which seems to bear an appearance inspired by Back To The Future) to the very idea of alien conspiracies and Area 51 paranoia of the 50’s. And when Chuck is thrust into the mix, he can’t help but make random and direct references to The Terminator or even Star Wars. There are all kinds of fun and clever little nods and references sprinkled throughout Planet 51, which is liable to entertain adults just as much as the younger audience it targets. But there’s an element to the approach of the film that, because it relies so heavily on reminding us of familiar alien and monster lore that Planet 51 feels at times more like it’s one big spoof or homage than its own standalone story. And it isn’t really the downfall of the film – since I do often enjoy cleverly placed cultural references – but there are moments where the film just feels a bit flat or underdone.

And that feeling is entirely not due to its visual quality. Although the film is done by first-time director Jorge Blanco and two co-directors, the animation itself is breathtaking. Planet 51 looks beautiful from start to finish. The only time things seemed slightly off is when Chuck – the human – would speak. Sometimes his words more clearly didn’t naturally match his lips, but overall, from the backgrounds to the fluid motion of the characters and surroundings, Planet 51’s animation is first-rate. It’s certainly an impressive production.

The content of Planet 51 may be its most questionable aspect. More than just a couple times does the content venture into the suggestive arena, offering some jokes that are a bit off-color at best. From the opening scene where two teens are “parking” at a lookout point and share a kiss, to a carefully timed use of the phrase “What the… duck?!” and even a couple gags that involve butt plugs and suppositories, Planet 51 skates on thin ice when it comes to rude and crude humor. The majority of the most offensive gags are likely go over the kids’ heads, but still it felt strange to see some of the jokes that worked their way into the film. It gave it all a slightly more adult feel – especially partnered with older cultural references that children just wouldn’t understand – and it’s a good chance that such a feel is what dampened its quality a bit.

In the end, Planet 51 is a good animated family film, but not without its faults. Those looking for the random humor of Cloudy With a Chance Of Meatballs or the family charm of a Pixar film, will be disappointed that Planet 51 tries to be many different films in one and ultimately loses a bit of its own personality in the process. It’s still a worthwhile and fun piece of entertainment that encourages its audience (once again) to embrace those around you that are different than you… just don’t expect it to be anything more.

Mark says…

John’s analysis was spot-on. I don’t have much to offer in the way of a drastic differing opinion, however there are a few elements I wish to discuss. First off, right out of the chute, Planet 51 suffers from its timing. In a year that has seen some of the most impressive animated feature films to date — establishing a record for Oscar contending animation — this under assuming tale inevitably takes a back seat to heavy hitters (with heavy storylines) such as Pixar’s Up and Coraline. Although Planet 51 itself is among the films in the mix for an academy award, it certainly does not compare in terms of engrossing content.

Too much time is spent on insignificant characters in peculiarly placed situations. Rather than spending time fleshing out the main players — whom we never get to the point of caring too much about — the director felt the need to insert a random scene of a mail carrier, with no bearing on the story whatsoever, attempting to out-wit an alien dog. And Lem’s love interest, Neera (voiced by Jessica Biel) was overshadowed by an annoyingly trite hippy-like protester named Glar. I realize he was meant to be irritating (mission accomplished), but he also succeeded in completely wiping away any kind of connection audiences should have had for Neera and her potential relationship with Lem. These types of tactics rendered the story relatively heartless.

Despite several flaws, Planet 51 will most certainly be a hit with its target audience. The children will love the visuals and will absolutely fall in love with dog-like robot, Rover. Sure they may not understand the overdone homage to classic sci fi or some of the borderline crude humor, but that’s the beauty of children…they are not jaded like us adults trying to nitpick a movie intended for kids. So feel free to take the little ones to your local cinema for a flick you can completely take in while on cruise control — which is sometimes a welcome experience.