Planète 51

Please disregard RichardSRussell-1's review, I am not sure he watched the movie, at least not with very much attention. First, he states "humans as the bad guys" but the only human was the movie's good guy! The military general was the bad guy, and even a four year old could easily see that. Second, I'm not sure if he is familiar with movies playing on themes and paying homage to other movies, stories, and so forth. That's not ripping off, but that reviewer obviously can't even grasp that concept. Countless movies, perhaps most of them, will include scenes and lines deliberately intended to make reference other works – this is not plagiarism, it's paying homage! There has not been a single children's animated movie with this particular theme, not even close (at least no movie or major work). Yes, it is essentially a reverse E.T. and builds on many, many other movies that have come before. But the overall work is not a copy of anything else.

It's a play on the common movie theme, and popular attitude in the 1950's, that all aliens must be terrifying monsters and the civic paranoia and fear that follows the suggestion of an alien visitor. Given that, it *has* to copy themes and images and possibly even lines from other movies. That's the whole point.

Having seen almost every kid's animated movie out there, I found this movie to be very enjoyable and I loved seeing it. More importantly (at least if you're a parent) my kids loved this movie, and they don't like every kid's movie. It may not be the greatest movie of all time, but I would definitely recommend it and a great watch.

I have always loved animation, whether it's cartoons(Looney Tunes and Silly Symphonies), films or TV shows. Planet 51 is not a bad movie, but at the end of the day it felt rather bland. I've seen worse certainly, but I can also think of better out there. The animation is wonderful though, very rich in colour and detail. The soundtrack is memorable, there are a few funny moments that will have children chuckling, fun set pieces and a couple of Cold War pastiches that will keep adults interested, Rover is a great character and by far the best character of the movie and it all begins very promisingly. The voice cast are full of great actors, especially Gary Oldman and John Cleese, and Planet 51 generally uses them well, Dwayne Johnson is an especially likable lead. However, the story, despite its great premise, is rather weak and unoriginal in structure and after a promising twenty minutes it is never quite as interesting. I liked the Cold War pastiches, but some of the other references were verging on tired. Among the funny moments, there is the overall mediocrity of the script, with a lot of clichéd dialogue. The characters are weak and stereotypical, with one of the blandest villains I've seen in an animated film recently, and the ending is very predictable. In conclusion, looks great but at the end of the day it felt very bland and forgettable. 6/10 Bethany Cox

It's an "ET-in-reverse" story. An Earthling astronaut gets stuck on what he calls an alien planet. The local green folks call him (accurately) the alien. The story is a fond tribute to drive-in's, space-creatures sci-fi, and the 50's. With the Area 51 reference in its title, you know the film will be poking fun at everything it can get its hands on, including itself. It delivers this.

There's hover craft that look like big-finned autos of that era, black & white TV, and pioneer rock 'n' roll. It's clever humor, although some of this has been done before. There's a lot of parallels to Monsters vs. Aliens, too, in that frequent references to classic sci-fi flicks (up to the present, not just the 50's) pop up in sight gags and one-liner jokes. My fav was the character that resembled the Aliens movie creatures. There are other clichés sent up for satire: a loud mouth hawkish general, a wanna-be scientist, etc. Adults won't be bored thanks to these in-jokes, and the kids should like the slapstick stuff.

The film boasts a great idea, and some, but not all, of the potential is utilized. It's good natured and fun, rating about average for an animated feature.

First, I'll let you know about our demographic (to help you decide if you will relate to my review or not): I am a parent of a 10 year old boy, a 7 year old girl, and a 2 month old baby. I am in my early 30s, and my wife is in her late 20s. We are moderate movie-goers, as in, we watch a fair number of movies, and we miss a lot of movies. I am University educated, my kids are fairly typical of their age, and my wife is also fairly well educated.

We decided to go to this movie with our children at 9:20 PM on a Saturday Night which was actually also our 11th anniversary. It was a bit of a risk, and considering the rating that this movie seems to have, it could have ended horribly (considering it was our anniversary) We all quite enjoyed this movie. It's not overly complicated, but it's got a fairly unique plot, decent script, excellent character development, and it seems to steer clear of some of the more cliché stereotypes that could have plagued this type of movie.

It's pure fantasy, and it's nearly 100% kids movie, but we adults didn't have to "suffer" through it. My wife and I laughed heartily at much of the situational humour; both my kids laughed uproariously at most of the silly funny moments, and the situational humour. The visuals were quite pleasing, without being annoying (I find the latest 3D craze with so many movies rather annoying, for example). The voices were well cast, the scripts and voice-acting was well done and quite seamless. I didn't find myself thinking, "I know who that voice is!" at all, because it wasn't something that popped into my mind.

So, I gave this a 7. Why not higher?, you might ask. Well, it's not ground-breaking, it wasn't epic, and it wasn't a movie that leaves me thinking about something for a long time. It wasn't lower because there was nothing blatantly bad about this show. It was all enjoyable, and none of us regret having seen this show on our anniversary.

I hope my review helps you decide to go see this film :D

First of all, let me say that I'm tired of dumb reviews saying "why do aliens speak English?" or "they fart and burp a lot". Disney's The Princess and the Frog's trailer has about 3 ass related jokes and one burp in less than 45 seconds. Toy Story's characters spoke English and understood humans and nobody wondered why. A house managed to be lifted by balloons in Up with no police radars detecting anything. So, this said: Let's sit down and enjoy a movie and stop looking for silly excuses to criticize it.

I watched Planet51 with my two nephews (8 and 10 years old) and they enjoyed it all the way. The quality is as good as Pixar's or Dreamworks and, yes, it's true the script is somewhat flat and very repetitive, but as the kids said to me "We didn't understand Wall-E's plot and didn't sympathize with any characters in Up, but Planet51 we did." It has some really funny characters (the white camera ala Wall-e and the alien pet), plus it's easy to understand, and despite the lack of chases or explossions it keeps its pace all the time and, as I said before, kids love the characters and understand -and enjoy- the plot.

As Groucho Marx once said: A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five!!!