New director Jorge Blanco creates a reasonably entertaining animated film.
Artwork by Heather Larson
Everyone knows the classic story of the aliens vs. humans. The aliens land on planet earth, the humans believe the aliens are going to take over their world, eat their brains, and kill the entire human race, la de da de da. Classic. However, the new animated movie Planet 51 throws a new twist on that old formula. This time, the humans are not the ones being invaded, for it is the inhabitants of Planet 51 who have been intruded upon by the “aliens,” aka, the humans.
In this ironic spin on an old story line, these green antennaed creatures are very human like. They have their government and law enforcement much like ours, friends like us, family like us, and they also speak English. It’s ironic the way that the tables have been turned and to them, Captain Charles T. Barker, the human astronaut who has landed on their planet, is an extraterrestrial.
The story begins with a very nice ordinary day on planet 51; the folks are making burgers, spending family time together, and just enjoying their lives, and then it begins to rain rocks. Now, my question is: where do all the rocks go once it quits raining? This was one of the slight flaws that I caught in the movie. This random “rain” storm implied that the spaceship was landing. Captain Charles T. Barker (Dwain ‘The Rock’ Johnson) stepped out of the ship and created a reenactment of Neil Armstrong placing the American flag on the surface of the moon. The captain was expecting anything but life on this planet. As he is walking out of his spacecraft, he steps on a squeaky toy of the residential dog, which again, makes no sense. You see, the dog in this movie strongly resembles the “Alien” from the movie Alien. He has no eyes, only a mouth on his face, so how can it ever find the toy without eyes? But when he steps on the squeaky toy, all of the residents of Planet 51 are overcome with fear, just as the captain is. Captain Barker begins to run away, thus begins the story.
The rest of the movie tells the story of Captain Barker and his adventure throughout Planet 51, befriending one of the natives, and trying to make it back to his ship before the seventy-eight hours until blast off are over. I found it somewhat disturbing throughout the movie how the way that their government reacted to this “creature” stepping foot on their land, and how it is exactly how all of we humans would react if some alien invaders were to make their way onto earth. The government on Planet 51 was determined to find the “alien,” kill him, and dissect his brain in order to figure out what this invader was all about. Captain Barker spends the entire film avoiding the government and almost all of the citizens, who were instructed, if they spotted the alien, to bring him to the government, so he was afraid for his own safety.
Although almost all of the citizens would have followed government instructions, one teenage boy named Lem, (Justin Long, He’s Just Not That Into You), befriends the “alien” and soon realizes just how alike the two are, and how their societies are very similar. In their adventures, they are constantly almost being caught, and so the story line – at first – never gets dull; however, about half way through, I found myself getting a wee bit bored. It was only when something dramatic happened towards the end that I realized I hadn’t really been as entertained as I probably should have been, and I had started day-dreaming a bit.
At the end of the movie, there really is a good lesson that can be learned by all. The lesson is that you should never judge someone or something by how they look, because they may end up being completely different than you had first thought, and you may sometime need their help. However, I’m not sure if children could easily pick up that lesson, and considering it is supposed to be a children’s movie, I feel that is its downfall. Overall, the movie really is quite good, I just feel like there were a few things that could have been a bit more thought out, and made a little bit more sense. I’d recommend seeing the movie, although it may not be worth your eight dollars, so wait to rent it.
