Planet 51 – on rental (2009). Planet 51 – an animated motion picture that’s come out from Ilion Animation Studios, a setup based in Madrid – has one significant thing in its corner: a familiar premise but taken with a twist. There’s been films of aliens landing on Earth before – but how about a film where a human astronaut lands on a planet and he becomes the alien?
For lack of a better descriptor, Planet 51 is ET… in reverse, as lead voice actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson puts it. The setting is a small town Glipforg which is inhabited by green rubber-eared creatures living in an era that looks suspiciously like a 1950s America. Over there, Alienphobia is a cultural way of life, with film and comic book media which paint aliens as laser-blasting grotesque creatures in flying saucers who’d also capable of mind control. Amidst the town’s residents is Lem (Justin Long), a socially-awkward fellow who’s also skeptical about this whole notion that all aliens are hostile, the girl of his dreams, Neera (Jessica Biel), and his best friend Skiff (Seann William Scott in overdrive mode) who believes everything that’s told about aliens and even adds his own unique spin on them.
Their individual perceptions get put to the test when a NASA astronaut, Chuck (‘The Rock’), lands on their planet expecting to find an uninhabited rock. Only that it isn’t, and he’s now the alien with the planet’s military hot on his heels to dissect his brain. And who’s gonna help him? Lem, Neera and Skiff of course.:)
Like the recent Monsters vs Aliens., there are loads galore of nods to sci-fiction films we all know already. You’ll see lines directly from Star Trek (something about Borg resistance), Star Wars (“You are my only hope!”), The Right Stuff (the 1980s film about the race for Space), and The Terminator. Not surprisingly though, few of those references as humor work. In fact, the funniest bits are typically the ones that are original. One particular standout is a hilarious scene where our group of intrepid heroes get surrounded by army goons led by a General Grawl (voiced by Gary Oldman playing it for outright laughs), and Grawl explains who gets to shoot who if their minds get overtaken by ‘these aliens’.
Interestingly, the film got badly panned by online critics for clunky visuals, cliché characters, and too much slapstick humor. Personally, I don’t think it was nearly quite so bad. Granted, the visuals, character design and animation work don’t quite measure up to what you’d normally see from something that comes out from PIxar, but for a studio producing its first full-length animation film, it still looks alright. The design of aliens won’t appeal to some though: there’re anatomical… er, anomalies to start with, and some of the smaller creature designs look as though they were copied directly from other bit-hit sci-fiction films for laughs without considering if they really fit logically into the film to begin with.
The film is squarely targeted at the younger segment demographic, with its bright color palette, spirited and cheerful music soundtrack, and family-safe themes. I enjoyed this one.:)
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