Planet 51 (2009)

I'll tell you why so serious

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

In this successful Spanish picture there are humor , rip-roaring adventures , action , thrills and many other things . It deals with an American astronaut Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker (Voice by Dwayne Johnson) lands on Planet 51 thinking he's the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders like Chuck. But on this alien planet the media has tagged spacemen as brain-eating, zombie-creating monsters, causing Baker to run . The planet is set in the 50s and even though much on the alien planet is round in design, nothing has wheels . There Chuck meets Lem (the name voiced by Justin Long, is also the abbreviation for Lunar Excursion Module. NASA's LEM was used as part of the Apollo program to land astronauts on the moon) , an average teenager working on getting the girl named Neera (Jessica Biel's voice) and furthering his career at the local planetarium . While , Chuck's command module called Odyssey (this is the same name of the command module used in the Apollo 13 mission) is orbiting the planet .Fabulous and amusing C.G. animated film , lavishly produced and achieving a big success . Gorgeous and astounding animated picture with outstanding and fantastic starring , an astronaut called Chuck and his good friend , Lem . Fun story of outland space plenty of adventures , bemusing situations , fights , chuckles , emotion , and action . Entertaining and solid retelling from Atresmedia Cine , the film division of DeAPlaneta's broadcasting group Atresmedia or Antena 3 , co-produced Planet . The whole piece of adventure teems with excitement , thrills , humor , astral atmosphere and being pretty amusing . The movie was originally going to be called "Planet One" but the owners of Planet One, who make children's and teen TV programs in the USA, threatened to sue . The film's producers chose to call the movie Planet 51 (2009), acknowledging Area 51, the supposed center of UFO investigation in America. Spain's animation output is now knocking on global market doors, boosted by the growing commitment of private broadcasters such as Antena 3 TV . Ilion Animation Studios' $60 million Planet 51, a Sony U.S. pickup, paved the way by scoring $105.7 million worldwide in 2010 . Formerly , the great producer , Julio Fernandez from Fantastic factory had produced successful animated pictures such as ¨El Raton Perez I and II¨ or "The Hairy Tooth Fairy", ¨Donkey Xote¨ , ¨Gisaku¨ , ¨El Cid : the legend¨ by Jose Pozo and ¨Goomer¨. Two of Spain's more anticipated releases — the $28.6 million-budgeted "Justin and the Knights of Valour," produced by Antonio Banderas, and Argentinian Juan Jose Campanella's $20 million Foosball are animated features.The motion picture was compellingly realized by a trio of perfect filmmakers as Jorge Blanco , Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez ,with a high budget of $70 million, this is the most expensive movie produced in Spain . Production lasted 16 months, roughly half the amount of time it takes to make a Pixar movie. Rating : Above average , worthwhile watching .

So, I remember the previews for this thing a few years back, but never had a chance to catch it. I saw it on the shelf at a place that sells used DVDs, and took a chance. I was mildly amused. It was good. Not outstanding, but pretty decent. Fun, funny, adventurous, what more could you want?I liked the animation, the premise, even the story and the voice acting. It was all very good. I liked it. But, and there's always a "but" in my reviews (well ... mostly, anyway), I felt the setup wasn't given enough time. We all understand about the USAF's Area 51, and the fun being poked here, and the aliens being stuck in the developmental period equivalent of the 1950s was pretty clever, but the NASA Astronaut, his predicament and the humor derived therefrom is predicated on the notion that everyone's seen classic 1950's sci-fi B-movies. It's a tenuous theme on which to build a film.I saw those films growing up. I saw the original "The Thing", "The Blob", "Them", "Invasion of the Body Snathers", "The Three Stooges versus the Martians" and a whole slew of monster and sci-fi flicks that played on the fears of Red-Scared/anti-Communist 1950's America. Unlike most of the audience, I got all the references to various films of years gone by. I was there when Helen told Klaatu's robot "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!" I was there when Richard Graves fought giant locusts/Grasshoppers threatening Chicago (or was it Milkwaukee?). I was there when Robby the Robot bustled across an alien landscape in a sci-fi reincarnation of Jules Verne's classic about a man wanting to be left alone. I saw all those films, and tons more. But I have a hard time believing that parents, younger than me, and their children, also younger than me, will remember or even have knowledge of all of the sci- fi B-movie schlock that came out during the 50s and 60s. I just seems likely to me that the film's humor, for all of its good intentions, probably flew over the heads of a most of the people who enjoyed the film regardless.So, where's the harm? I suppose there really isn't any, but it would be nice to thing that the audience watching the thing would have an inclination of the references. But hey, that's just me.As for everything else? It's a finely crafted piece of CGI cinema. No shots are wasted. Everything looks as it should, and the characters, even the little robo-rover, shine with incredibly talented voice acting. No one misses a beat. Even John Cleese's paranoid super-genius professor gone wrong and gone haywire is right on the money, showing the audience how presumptuous scientists of yore could be when presenting their theories about how the world might work.The parents of the main character could have used a little bit more exposure in the meat of the film, and I think the girlfriend might have been a smidgen more proactive, but otherwise, like I say, it's a pretty decent watch.Lots of extras, a good story, good acting, good CGI, give it a whirl on the DVD player.Enjoy.

On a planet far far away, a green Martian species exist quite quietly, content to keep their sights set on their own world and nothing more. The population of this world (I guess it's called Planet 51 but I'm not really sure) is going through their version of the 1950s, complete with poodle skirts. Everything is fine until human astronaut Captain Charles Barker (The Rock) lands on Planet 51, unaware of its inhabitants. Things take off from there as must of the Martians organize a manhunt to track down Barker while Lem (Justin Long) attempts to help the alien get back to his shuttle.The first 15 minutes or so of "51" aren't bad. It's kind of a fun "Back to the Future"/"Pleasantville" mix that comes off as a bit inventive if uninspired. And you could do worse in the voice talent category than Justin Long. Where this movie made a decisive turn for the worse was the minute, nay, the second, that The Rock's Captain Barker stepped onto the screen. Some actors have the ability to move from live action to animated feature seamlessly and some don't. It's a different talent, a different skill set that some great actors can't master. Of course, this transition is probably a little easier for an actor who can, in fact, act. Unfortunately The Rock is not an actor and he seems hell bent on proving his talent deficiency at every opportunity. I have yet to see The Rock do anything in his short career that hasn't made me want to set myself on fire. And I refuse to call him Dwayne Johnson until he does something to prove he's an actor, not a wrestler masquerading as an actor. In all seriousness, his arrival in "Planet 51" is the exact moment that the movie begins a steady decline. Very rarely have I seen a single actor or character suck the life out of a movie as quickly as The Rock did here. It's so sudden that you almost want to give the guy an award if only there was a sophisticated way to say, "You sucked so bad that the entire movie crashed around you the minute your character appeared." He's awful. In all fairness, the script, which is riddled with poor attempts at adult humor and outrageously bad dialogue, does him absolutely no favors. But it wouldn't have mattered if "Planet 51" had been penned by Tarantino, Nolan, Sorkin, or any of the others who stand out among the Hollywood elite. What would have been a decent enough kid's flick is instead left broken and mangled on the side of the road, another victim of what The Rock is cooking.My site, The Soap Box Office: www.thesoapboxoffice.blogspot.com

Planet 51 is yet another animated movie that works well for almost anyone, not only the kids. Planet 51 is a mostly cute movie about an alien society that are very alike our fifties, or how the fifties looks like in the movies. Their greatest horror is aliens, and trouble arise when a human astronaut lands on the planet.Spoof is the key word of the movie. Most of all it is a spoof of the entire fifties, and the invading alien genre that evolved in that decade. But Planet 51 also spoofs, and that is one of the things, alike the Pixar movies, that is best about Planet 51. It's own jokes are not quite as good as entertaining as its spoofs, but a few stand out. Especially the character Rover and his tricks are hilarious. Without his antics Planet 51 would be average at best, but with him it is quite good.Planet 51 is a cute and entertaining animated movie, perhaps best to watch with young kids. But adults will find it entertaining as well.6/10