Escape from Planet Earth Review
Escape from the movie theater.
Based on my general dating success the odds of me every procreating have diminished to the point that if it ever happens it will be a true statistical anomaly. However, if I were ever abducted by aliens and forced to mate with hot green women in some kind of genetic breeding program (fingers crossed) the question may one day arise: would I want my green hybrid alien children to see this movie?
The answer is no. Not because there is some racy reference to something that might be construed as sexual to corrupt their soft super-human brains (quite the opposite in fact. This movie plays it so safe it might as well be a bubble baby). No, just because it is dumb and lazy. I know kid’s movies can get away with not being the Usual Suspects story-wise, but I think a certain amount of complexity in a movie will help stimulate my non-existant child’s brains somewhat. A good kids movie should be filled with bright colors and cute characters for the toddlers, a decent story with fun characters for the preadolescences, and some clever lines and witty jokes to keep the parents from having to fight the urge to beat their children for dragging them to this flick.
Rather than do that this film set it’s sights on the four year old demographic and opted to stop there. 
All the jokes were lame retreads of other bad kids and alien movies (Plan 9 image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category), the characters had no depth and were so fake sounding that they might as well have been motion captured using the inevitable toys that are most likely already steaming over from China, and the story was simplistic to the point of See Spot Run. I know this is a kids movie and as such expectations need to be lowered, but when compared to other brilliant kids movies such as Wreck It Ralph or Brave it is clearly a waste of effort.
One might accuse me of unfairly comparing a small, independent production to the duel Death Stars of animation Pixar and Disney, but honestly in the areas that huge animation studios have a true advantage (3D and animation technology) this film is right up there. Honestly, it had a $40,000,000 budget and was able to pull in some excellent B level celebrities (Brendon Frasier, Rob Corddry, Rick Gervais, Jessica Alba, and Sarah Jessica Parker) for voice over work so you can’t really call it a small production. However, the area where they lagged was in the writing. I have said this before and will say it again, if you have a multi-tens of millions of dollar budget can you not find a couple mil to hire the greatest writers in the world for your story?
As is my policy I will not judge this kids film using my usual rating system. Normally I rank films by how kids in the audience seem to be enjoying it but thankfully the theater was nigh empty when I saw it. The movie grossly exceeded all box office expectations so I guess it can be counted as successful, but honestly there hasn’t been a kid or family friendly movie all year so I wonder if a lot of the box office success stems from “Oh my God we have to get these kids out of the house before they completely wreck the place” syndrome. The timing was just too good for this movie to fail (I predict next year we will have 10 kids movies at the end of February, each of which will fail due to too many kids movies out there. There is nothing Hollywood likes better than to leach on to a trend. Ever see one of those Three Stooges episodes where all three Stooges try to go through a door at the same time and get in each others way? If not check back in Feb).
The story is of Gary Supernova and his brother Scorch (even the names bug the hell out of me. Buzz Lightyear made sense because he was named by a toy marketing agency. I suppose the same could be said to be true here, but for heavens sake try to be a little original), who are some kind of alien professional adventure team or something. Scorch is the action star while Gary is the brains behind the brawn, directing things from a control station while Scorch does his best to have things go horribly wrong. They have missions like rescuing babies (who puts babies by themselves in a space ship? Also, if six babies were in a ship that crashed and they were surrounded by dangerous aliens wouldn’t they send in like 10,000 battle droids? Very little makes sense). Gary has a wife and son who hang out at work with him. The kid is every bit as annoying as a kid action hero can be, plus 3. They team is given a mission to the “Dark Planet”, the most dangerous planet in the universe.
Ugh. Recounting this story is giving me a headache. Scorch gets captured by the US Army (oh, the most dangerous planet in the universe is Earth. Surprise!). Some cartoonish (yes, I know. He’s a cartoon. Still) general is kidnapping aliens to make his super death ray. Gary goes after him and also gets captured. At that point the movie turns into a typical escape movie mixed with Scooby Doo. There is a twist and sub plot but the motivation for all the characters to do anything is so weak none of it makes sense.
Again, I won’t star and black hole it. It seems to be a commercial success so look forward to Escape from Planet Earth II: Scorch’s Revenge or something soon. I will say it was the weakest of the animated films I watched in the last couple years. I enjoy most animated films but was seriously eying the exit. It will keep your 4-6 year old entertained but I believe most older kids will think it dumb. Kids are smarter than most parent think, and have a very keen sense of the lame. As a parent you will be bored stupid. Spare yourself and just throw something on the NetFlix for your rug rat.
Thanks for reading. I always feel dirty after trashing a kids movie, but even stuff for the little kiddiewinks needs to have some accountability. Otherwise we will end up giant dancing colorful creatures with televisions surgically embedded in their stomachs. I am headed to LA this weekend for another Warhammer tournament (West Coast GT, if you actually care). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to comment on this movie or my review here. If you have off topic questions or comments feel free to email them to me at [email protected]. Talk to you next week.
Dave
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