Planet 51 (2009)

Planet 51 (2009): Dir: Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad / Voices: Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long, Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman, Seann William Scott: Family animation about places and the beings living there. Astronaut Charles lands on a strange planet populated by green people. Among them is Lem who befriends him and struggles to hide him from authorities who seized his spacecraft. Directed by Jorge Blanco and Javier Abad who have fun with placing the shoe on the other foot in terms of who is on what turf. While the narrative is certainly bland at best it is equipped with a colorful animated world. Dwayne Johnson voices Chuck who gradually adapts in communicating. He is now the one being observed as oppose to the one observing. Justin Long voices the ambitious Lem who decides to assist him in reaching his ship. We know how this turns out and the supporting characters are an even bigger torn in the side. Jessica Biel voices the bland love interest Neera and that pretty much sums her up. Gary Oldman plays the stereotypical General Grawl who is out to expose and exterminate Chuck. Seann William Scott voices Lem's best friend who works at a comic book store. The role is as straight forward as it sounds. The screenplay will hardly appeal to adults but children may find its simplicity amusing. Interesting concept places humans as the observed and misunderstood. Score: 6 / 10

I don't often sell movies. If I pick up a movie whose premise looks engaging, usually it ends up being good enough to watch again, and I keep it. This one is an exception.I watched it because the premise -- a human finding himself playing the role of alien on another planet -- was intriguing. Unfortunately, the movie spends more time fooling around with slapstick and young love clichés than actually exploring that premise. The humor is silly/ridiculous as opposed to genuinely funny. The story feels shallow, and the emotional heart it could have had barely comes out. I really *wanted* to connect with some of the characters, especially Lem ... how could I not love a science-crazy teenager?! But it turned out to be difficult to care about them. I don't necessarily mind all of the cheeky references to other sci-fi films, but you've got to have more than that to build a movie on.Maybe I was setting my standards a little high by hoping that this would be another E.T., or a kid-friendly version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, with the human and alien roles flipped. But I've seen enough kids' movies that I would honor with an unqualified GREAT assessment that I don't think this one deserves a pass. Treat your kids to something that doesn't insult their taste.

At least one major critic said that "Planet 51" was a one-joke movie, and I agree with that statement. Though the movie tries to reverse things by changing around the roles, it otherwise plays like movies about aliens visiting earth. The movie does try hard to have a sense of humor about the situation, but I didn't laugh, except for the part of the movie where a cover of "Greased Lighting" plays with sanitized lyrics. Another fault I found with the movie were the characters were pretty thin and one-note. As for the visual look of the movie, the art design and the animation is serviceable, but is notably missing the polish found in Pixar and other big budget Hollywood computer animated movies. Still, I feel that (young) kids may find the juvenile feel of the movie appealing, and will not feel that they've seen it all before somewhere, because they probably haven't. However, they won't understand the references to other (and better) science fiction movies.

Please disregard RichardSRussell-1's review, I am not sure he watched the movie, at least not with very much attention. First, he states "humans as the bad guys" but the only human was the movie's good guy! The military general was the bad guy, and even a four year old could easily see that. Second, I'm not sure if he is familiar with movies playing on themes and paying homage to other movies, stories, and so forth. That's not ripping off, but that reviewer obviously can't even grasp that concept. Countless movies, perhaps most of them, will include scenes and lines deliberately intended to make reference other works – this is not plagiarism, it's paying homage! There has not been a single children's animated movie with this particular theme, not even close (at least no movie or major work). Yes, it is essentially a reverse E.T. and builds on many, many other movies that have come before. But the overall work is not a copy of anything else.It's a play on the common movie theme, and popular attitude in the 1950's, that all aliens must be terrifying monsters and the civic paranoia and fear that follows the suggestion of an alien visitor. Given that, it *has* to copy themes and images and possibly even lines from other movies. That's the whole point.Having seen almost every kid's animated movie out there, I found this movie to be very enjoyable and I loved seeing it. More importantly (at least if you're a parent) my kids loved this movie, and they don't like every kid's movie. It may not be the greatest movie of all time, but I would definitely recommend it and a great watch.