Just when you thought animated sci-fi couldn’t get any worse than “Astro Boy,” along comes the insipid “Planet 51” to blow it out of the galaxy.
The film, a nadir in the genre of alien-human role reversal, is little more than a floating mass of space junk filtered through the porous minds of lazy, unimaginative filmmakers who think pop-culture jokes are the center of the universe.
It’s so bad, the script’s repeat references to brain removal become more of a prerequisite for viewing than a running gag. Gag being the operative word, because that’s exactly what you do every time the film’s trio of talent-starved directors fills the screen with sappy uplift and cacophonous action that’s likely to spur more migraines than excitement.
The worst part is that “Planet 51” began as a promising idea in which an earthling is the invader, and the paranoid but peace-loving creatures from another world are the frightened masses. Unfortunately, writer Joe Stillman takes that seed and buries it under a mountain of clichés.
The result is something akin to a Flintstoneian alternative universe, where 1950s America is imposed on a long distant culture. In this case, it’s a planet billions of miles from Earth in a sleepy little burg called Glipforg.
It’s a Utopian community in which every one is the same color (green) and apparently worships the same god.
It’s into this passive fascist society that dim-witted astronaut Capt. Chuck Baker sets his interplanetary ship down, immediately stirring the wrath of the military and a pint-sized scientist with an enlarged cranium.
They all want Chuck’s brain – what there is of one, anyway. And they just might get it unless Chuck’s new pal, a nerdy teen astronomer named Lem, can keep the Chuckster and his adorable robotic cohort, Rover, hidden away.
If that notion sounds familiar, it’s because it’s stolen directly out of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and it’s just one of a dozen sci-fi classics “Planet 51” pilfers in a story that plays more like “The Day the Brain Stood Still.”
And that brain belongs to Stillman, assuming he retains pride in ownership. And he’s not about to exert it by being clever or innovative. At least he’s consistent, always taking the path of least resistance, like making sure the folks in Glipforg conveniently speak the same language as Chuck (English) and consume products bearing the familiar names of Volkswagen, Kellogg’s and Twix. Gee, I guess corporations really are universal.
