Review

Review Date: 22-November-09
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Planet 51 (2009)

Theater owners would probably disagree, but I think they should run movies like Planet 51 at a discounted rate. After all, today's technology must make it cheaper to produce animated features, and the use of stock characters and themes must make scripts easy to come by. I am not exactly knocking Planet 51 since it offers escape and entertainment to both parents and children. I just think that long versions of cartoons you might see on television should not cost as much as films whose creativity, content, or style call out for the big screen.

Like all of its ilk, Planet 51 concerns an average young fellow coming into his own and different people coming together in friendship. Its one claim to originality is the premise, which finds an astronaut from Earth (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) landing on a planet whose inhabitants look vaguely human, speak English, and live in a society similar to the United States in the 1950s. The astronaut's name is Chuck Baker, and he is shocked to find life on the planet since his dog-like scouting robot had only sent back images of rocks. The natives are even more shocked than Chuck. Not only is the arrival of a spaceship unnerving, but they have a limited understanding of the universe and a fondness for movies depicting aliens as tyrants who enslave decent folk and eat their brains.

As panic spreads and the planet's army mobilizes under a stern general (Gary Oldman), Chuck seeks refuge in a science museum and meets Lem (Justin Long), a nice kid who of course has a comic best friend (Seann William Scott) and a crush on the girl next door (Jessica Biel). Lem realizes that Chuck means no harm despite being a blowhard, so the two embark on a mission to get Chuck back to his shuttle so he can rendezvous with his mother ship. This entails humorous stratagems, hair's breadth escapes, and moments of rapport and heroism from which everyone emerges the better. I tend to think District 9 has a more likely vision of what would happen in the event of interplanetary visitation, but Planet 51 serves its purpose as unexceptional family fare at a slightly inflated price.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.