PLANET 51 Review

Hearing just Dwayne Johnson’s voice in a family movie is surprisingly more tolerable than seeing his actual presence in a family movie. PLANET 51 may not be original, in fact,… it’s pretty much like Dwayne Johnson’s other film Race To Witch Mountain except this time he’s the one that needs to go home to his planet. But PLANET 51 is funny and amusing nonetheless. It’s got so many references of sci-fi pop culture and the 50s, it’s hard not to enjoy it for what it is, a family-friendly animated film for younger viewers. For that particular reason, PLANET 51 has the right stuff.

“Planet 51″ is a galactic sized animated alien adventure comedy revolving around American astronaut Captain Charles “Chuck” Baker, who 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 reminiscent of a cheerfully innocent 1950s America, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders…like Chuck! With the help of his robot companion “Rover” and his new friend Lem, Chuck must navigate his way through the dazzling, but bewildering, landscape of Planet 51 in order to escape becoming a permanent part of the Planet 51 Alien Invaders Space Museum.

From a dog that looks like Ridley Scott’s Alien to a shot of E.T. flying, from the 50s music to the use of Area 51 myth, PLANET 51 is set on a a distant rock across our galaxy with inhabitants far different looking than we are and technology more advanced and yet their environment is more or less similar to how we were decades ago. The movie is a reverse play on Roswell and every Alien urban legend we’ve heard all our lives. What the filmmakers have done is installing all the usual characters, a hothead general driven by fear of uncertainty, a mad scientist/professor, a self-absorbed astronaut, a kid already facing adolescent problem and now is confronted with a daunting mission that he never asked for, the girl of his dream and a comic relief sidekick and a robot pet. The right ingredients to make the story a bit complicated and thrilling and make room for some harmless jokes to get the kids laughing.

It’s always fun to see what a big misunderstanding can do to a plot, the panic or mass hysteria is a treat. If you want to find the astronaut, you’d just have to follow the screams. PLANET 51 does some good attempt to tease its audience into thinking that Cpt. Chuck Baker is always one step closer to his ‘spaceship’ because Lem, who’s the brain of the operation, is smart enough to come up with decent ideas but of course, problems ensue and the next thing you know, getting to Chuck’s ‘Spaceship’ is almost impossible. Ya know how the year 2009 has been filled with movies that have the number 9 in their titles, such as 9, District 9, NINE, well, this movie’s secret underground military research base is called Base 9.
Dwayne Johnson does a good job of voicing the confidence, conceited, rico suave character that is Astronaut Chuck Baker who is not ashamed to admit that he’s got nothing but his good looks. I think it’d be better if the Chuck Baker himself was a Samoan instead of Caucasian, so it’ll fit the voice actor but maybe time will come to that eventually. Having Justin Long and Jessica Biel voice a couple of teenagers seem a bit of a stretch but they do their parts well.
PLANET 51 is not an award worthy animated feature but a much more character-driven story than Ponyo.

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