Director Jorge Blanco has crafted a weird beast. Planet 51 has the makings of a fantastic role-reversal tale – the aliens are more human than the human himself – and subsequently has plenty of opportunities for hilarity, yet it seems content on not doing much at all. Just when you think it is heading in one, funny, direction it turns down a boring, non-risk taking path that leaves you well and truly unsatisfied. Sure there is a nice message of 'never judge a book by its cover' that is always good to get across to children, but with no comedy or wit, who really wants to sit through 90 minutes of a message? What keeps this film from being a real stinker is the action. A few of the fast-paced sequences in the middle and final act are genuinely exciting and start to bring the movie to life; a chase scene where Baker and Lem are trying to evade the authorities is the highlight. However, even these scenes could have been a smidge longer and with added risk.
Dwayne Johnson is decent as the egotistical Baker, but you can barely tell it is him. Which begs the question, if you can't tell that it is Johnson why bother having him voice the character at all? I would've thought part of the humour would be to have a man like The Rock - who has become famous in the movie industry for playing roles against type set by his pro-wrestling alter ego - voicing this self-indulgent buffoon in order to send up the aforementioned cocksure persona. Also lending their voices is the usually very funny Justin Long, who plays it straight for the most part as Lem; Jessica Biel who has next to nothing to do as Lem's love-interest other than give the female kiddies a reason to see this; and Gary Oldman who is clearly having fun as over-the-top villain Grawl.
A very ordinary family flick not worth seeing until it hits a $5 DVD bargain bin in the years to come.
2 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)
Dwayne Johnson is decent as the egotistical Baker, but you can barely tell it is him. Which begs the question, if you can't tell that it is Johnson why bother having him voice the character at all? I would've thought part of the humour would be to have a man like The Rock - who has become famous in the movie industry for playing roles against type set by his pro-wrestling alter ego - voicing this self-indulgent buffoon in order to send up the aforementioned cocksure persona. Also lending their voices is the usually very funny Justin Long, who plays it straight for the most part as Lem; Jessica Biel who has next to nothing to do as Lem's love-interest other than give the female kiddies a reason to see this; and Gary Oldman who is clearly having fun as over-the-top villain Grawl.
A very ordinary family flick not worth seeing until it hits a $5 DVD bargain bin in the years to come.
2 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)