"Planet 51"-2009

If there was ever an animated film that needed a clever punch-up team, it’s this one. Planet 51 lacks both style and substance, which is surprising given the wealth of opportunities you’d think would be presented here. Perhaps first-time Spanish director Jorge Blanco and new Madrid-based studio Ilion Animation were overconfident about making a children’s film.

Sony's entry in the crowded animation field this holiday season is "Planet 51," a perky though not terribly imaginative feature aimed primarily at youngsters. The twist in this movie is that it has an alien planet terrified of - a human astronaut.

Kids will enjoy the swift action and slapstick gags, and adult minders can chuckle at a few more suggestive jokes.

Created by a Spanish company, Ilion Animation Studios, this digital cartoon is a jokey reimagining of 1950s science fiction flicks where Earth faced extinction by alien space invaders seemingly on a monthly basis.

A high concept gets low execution in Planet 51, a lame-brained toon that even kids will recognize as an insipid goof on sci-fi conventions. Any number of things have and could still be done with the idea of picturing a space-voyaging Earthling as a scary alien from the point of view of another planet’s inhabitants, but there’s nothing funny, provocative or involving about what 'Shrek' co-writer Joe Stillman and the team from Madrid-based Ilion Animation Studios do with the notion here.

The problem doesn’t lie in the reversal of the cliche, but in the fact that the picture trades in nothing but them.

Planet 51 devotes itself to tiresomely repetitive scenes of frenzied jeopardy, accompanied by music that shifts gears every 15 seconds to underline whatever response is desired and larded with refs to famous antecedents (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001, Star Wars, E.T., Alien, et al.) and an innocuous putative romance between Lem and neighbor Neera.

Chuck (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) isn't particularly bright -- his spacecraft is run by autopilot -- but he certainly is friendly. Yet the green people see an "ugly" monster in a space suit, so they flee in terror. Only Lem (Justin Long), a model student and aspiring astronomer, can see his friendly side. Soon he, his pal Skiff (Seann William Scott) and his not-quite-girlfriend Neera (Jessica Biel) must hide Chuck from the likes of gruff General Grawl (Gary Oldman) and crackpot Professor Kipple (John Cleese), a scientist who wants to perform a brain extraction on every strange creature he encounters.

There are chases and comical misunderstandings that extend this single-note idea for 90 minutes. When in doubt, the film cuts to Chuck's robot companion, "Rover," a doglike machine that collects every rock it finds.

The movie quickly grows aggravating because it’s clear there’s no imagination in play, only the recycling of familiar motifs and the attempted generation of Pavlovian responses based on expected character behavior and generic action. But it might have been worse: Its defects could have been magnified by 3D.

"Planet 51" is Sci-Fi Lite, running through the cliches - let's make that the memories -- of old sci-fi classics with gentle jokes and cornball battles. It doesn't measure up to what's best in current animation -- say, Coraline, Up, Fantastic Mr. Fox or A Town Called Panic, to name a few other films the Academy recently announced as eligible for this year's animation nomination. Those films demonstrate you can make animation that entertains the entire family.

"Planet 51" is not that ambitious. Planet 51 deserves to be packed up in a dusty crate in a corner of the Area 51 warehouse, never to be seen again.