The trailer for “Planet 51” began running almost a year before the film came out in theaters (Jan 16, right before “Paul Blart, Mall Cop”), and I’d probably saw that trailer and others at least 30 times before I finally got to see the actual movie.
Normally that’s not a good thing – and that was the case, again, this time.
“Planet 51” comes from a new animation company, Ilion Animation Studios, which is located in Spain. It’s a nice first effort, but they’ve still got plenty of work to do.
Dwayne “I Guess You Can Call Me “The Rock” Again” Johnson stars as the voice of U.S. astronaut Charles “Chuck” Baker, who lands on a distant planet only to learn that the creatures there talk and live like humans – but back in the 1950’s.
The aliens capture Chuck’s spaceship and so he convinces a teenage alien named Lem (voiced by Justin long) to hide him and help him get back to his ship so that he can return to Earth.
There are some nice ’50’s touches in the film, including the music and the overall look of the planet, but, unfortunately most of the gags and jokes have already been given away in the trailers. I only laughed a couple of times during the entire movie. If you haven’t seen any trailers you may laugh a few more times that I did, but there just aren’t enough funny lines or situations.
The animation itself isn’t great. The look of “Planet 51” is pretty basic and there are times the characters actually looked a little blurry.
Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman and John Cleese also lend their voice talents. No one really stands out.
“Planet 51” is rated PG. It’s safe for all ages. There are plenty of extars on the DVD, including games and deleted scenes. I can’t get too excited over them because I couldn’t get too excited over the movie.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “Planet 51” gets a C+.
An O.K. start for Ilion Animation, but the next time they have to come up with a better story, and they need to improve their quality of their animation if they are going to eventually compete with the Pixar’s, DreamWorks and Blue Sky’s of the animation world.