Planet 51: Rent It

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen an animated movie and to be honest I had low expectations. Planet 51 though is surprisingly enjoyable with some good voice acting from Hollywood stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jessica Biel, and Justin Long.

We start off with two teenagers up on make-out point, reminiscent of old drive-in movies, when suddenly an alien spaceship hovers overhead and begins to attack. They drive for their life and are saved by the army who begins to shoot at the alien, only to be quickly over powered. Suddenly, we get a clear view of the army general, who turns around and he’s green with antennas on his head. This turns out to be a movie about an alien invasion ala War of the Worlds.

Next a little boy watching the film is pulled out of his seat and out of the theater by his mom and we are introduced to the world that is Planet 51. It’s much like Earth in the 1950’s. From the music, clothes, and even the friendly mailman. Except of course everyone is green with antennas and have four fingers. Our main character is Lem (voiced by Justin Long), a high school student who gets a part time job as a junior assistant at the local observatory. Lem is in love with the Neera (voiced by Jessica Biel), the girl next door . There is also Skiff (voiced by Seann William Scott), Lem’s friend who works at the comic book shop. Life is going well for the youngster, who is working up the courage to ask Neera out feeling emboldened by his new job. Things take a turn though when an alien lands in his backyard.

The alien turns out to be NASA astronaut Captain Chuck Baker(voiced by Dwayne Johnson), who bounces out of the spaceship holding the American’s flag to claim the planet for the United States. He soon realizes that creatures preparing to have a barbecue are staring at him looking absolutely terrified. After a series of mishaps, Lem and Chuck finally meet and discover they both speak English. The teenager finally agrees to help the astronaut get back to his ship so he can get back onto a larger ship that’s will make the return trip back to Earth. Problem is the army has arrived, lead by General Grawl (voiced by Gary Oldman) who seeks to capture Chuck because of the fear of an alien invasion. The rest of the movie involves Lem and his friends helping Chuck get back to his ship and along the way getting to realize that they aren’t so different after all.

The theme of the film is about not fearing the unknown. Lem took that first step in agreeing to help Chuck and what he got in return was the ability to stand for what he believed in. This is a good message to teach kids, the targeted audience, but even adults can learn something from the experiences of these characters.

The animation is also better than expected. This is the first animated film from Tri-Star pictures that I’ve watched and I appreciate the detail that went into creating the fictional town. It is essentially “alienified” with cars resembling flying saucers from old Hollywood movies. While it can’t compare to the quality of Pixar animated films, it exceed my expectations. My favorite part of the movie was Rover, the roving droid who was sent by NASA to take pictures of the planet. It takes on the qualities of a dog with a love for rocks. Chuck hilariously points out that of all the things Rover could take pictures of, it sends back images of rocks instead of the full functioning society that is already dwelling there.

Planet 51 is a feel good movie that would be especially great to bring the little ones too. But I would recommend renting this rather than seeing it on the big screen. It was better than expected though not enough to spend ten dollars per person for.