Escape from Planet Earth (2013)

Now I saw this movie twice before. It wasn't a success for me. The animation is decent however cheap and very boring looking, there might be some funny parts, but that's about it. The writing isn't very good, its not very exciting after a long time, its just forgettable. The characters are so horrible and annoying. It was made in 2013, home of some bad animation like this, Free birds, Walking with dinosaurs, and the unsuccessful Planes movie (I haven't seen it, but I've heard its pretty bad.) So overall, this film was mediocre and poorly written. So save your money and watch a better space movie like Star wars or Galaxy quest. They are both live action, and better than this. This is a film that should've been nominated at the Razzies, but wasn't Story: 2/10 Animation:4/10 Characters:2/10 3/10

The storyline is about the conflict between two brothers and their struggle, but it is predictable and very shallow. It lacks of any new ideas and it feels like you have seen this movie already if you have watched some other alien animation movie. The animation (I watched it in 2D) in this movie are colorful and well done and the different alien lifeforms are interesting and funny to look at. So despite the disadvantages of the storyline it is quite an entertaining movie and has some good jokes along the line and I'm sure the shallow storyline won't bother kids as much as it did bother me. The movie feels like a blend between Monsters vs Aliens and Planet 51, so if you like any of those two, you are likely to enjoy this one as well.

Despite voice work by Brandon Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rob Corddry, William Shatner, Jessica Alba, George Lopez, Jane Lynch, Sofia Vergara, Ricky Gervais and Steve Zahn, "Escape From Planet Earth" starts off with a clever premise that is quickly cut off at the knees by mediocre writing and animation. Filled with weak helpings of anachronistic in-jokes and puns, the script by Bob Barlen and director Cal Brunker turns the old invasion-from-outer-space scenario on its head by depicting it from the aliens' viewpoint. But nothing very interesting or clever is done with it, so we wind up bored for most of the duration. More lethargy-prone five-year-olds might be entertained by it though.

Okay, let's see. Animation, pretty good, I'll give it a 7. Plot, not bad, another 7. Characters, pretty likable ... how about 7 for this one too. Family fun -- my 4 and 7 year old kids liked it, but didn't rave over it, not like Despicable Me 2 -- another 7. Hrm, it looks like this movie should be rated 7/10 if we average these individual ratings. So why, you may ask (but probably won't), do I want to give this film a 3/10? The reason, dear readers (assuming again that anyone will ever read this) is simple, they got the plot, but forgot how to tell a story. There was no suspense, in a plot that should have been driven by suspense, I mean, it's about an escape. Every time one of the films heroes encountered anything resembling an enemy he or she was immediately caught. Plots require suspense to bring them alive. So, while the writing was average, the pacing of the film was horrible with few surprises along the way, something (anything) to cause the viewer to feel some level of angst about the characters' predicament. Scortch lands on earth and gets caught by the bad guy. Gary lands on earth, drinks a slurpee and gets caught by the bad guy. Gary's wife tries to rescue him and gets caught by the bad girl. Gary's kid tries to get away from the bad guy but gets caught. At least he finally displays some moxie and frees his mother with his roll of explosives. As written this film should have been called "Aliens are Caught but Escape in the End", but I would prefer if the writers had injected a bit of suspense and a few chases here and there. I'm surprised the Weinstein's let this one out the door in this state.