Planet 51 DVD Review

March 4, 2010 No Comments

Things are starting to look up for teenager Lem (Justin Long.) He just landed his first job as the Assistant Assistant Curator at the town Observatory and is even working up the nerve to ask out Neera (Jessica Biel) the cute girl next door. Suddenly his outlook darkens as a strange space capsule lands in his front yard and he is introduced to Captain Charles T. Baker, aka “Chuck” (Dwayne Johnson), an astronaut from a planet called Earth. Charles convinces Lem to help him get back to his ship so he can leave before his spaceship autopilots back home…and hijinks ensure.

There is a good mix of humor that will keep parents amused while watching with the kids. I would have watched the movie just to see Ripley, the Giger inspired “dog” that pees acid and bears more than a slight resemblence to one of the most famous Aliens of cinema. I also thought the touch of having a society that bases everything on a bubble shape as opposed to our square based culture. The crop circle inspired cars, windows, newspapers, etc. were a funny touch.

Flipping the scenario around where Humans are “invading” an alien planet who’s inhabitants are culturally at the level of 1950′s America is a nice touch. Maybe they should have called it Planet 1951? Lem’s Rival, Glar (Alan Mariott) is even a wannabe protester who is trying to bring the counterculture to Planet 51. The 50′sesque songs provide the majority of the soundtrack with the Macarana added in for good measure.

The best voice performances were probably those of Gary Oldman as the villinous General Grawl and John Cleese as the sterotypical mad scientist who just wants to dissect the alien creature and extract his brains. Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel and Justin Long are both good in the lead roles but they play very basic characters that could have been voiced by a lot of other people without lowering the quality of the movie.

The animation is all CGI and, while well done, does not hit the levels of cutting edge animation, such as Up! or Kung Fu Panda. It looks a lot like Jimmy Neutron or some of the better television show animation. Everything has a smooth surface so you do not get that realistic texture on hair and fabric like a lot of films exhibit. I would like to see how much the Blu Ray release enhances the detail, however on standard DVD it was of medium depth, which is to say, cutting edge 2-3 years ago.

The good news is that, with the exception of a game switch out, most of the special features that are included on the Blu Ray also made it onto the dvd version. Run Rover Run is a little time limit game that kept my kids entertained for about 20 minutes. Games are always a good extra feature on kid’s titles in my opinion. Next up is a collection of extended scenes. These really didn’t lose much when cut to their final state but still were fun to check out. The World of Planet 51 is a virtual tour of Lem’s planet through clips from the movie. Life on Planet 51 is a pretty good making of featurette. It features interview clips from the voice actors and animatiors and some interesting behind the scenes footage. Animation fans will enjoy it. Planetarium features more interview snippets with the stars, including Justin Long, Dwayne Johnson and Jessica Biel. The Music Video features a lot of the 50′s style music featured in the game. Finally the animation progression reels show the entire process of bringing the film to life. As an animation buff this was easily my favorite part of the extra features. Overall this is a pretty extensive sampling of extras for a single disc release and Planet 51 has enough variety in these extras to keep everyone entertained after the movie ends.

The true litmus test is whether it this PG rated animated feature will hold the kids’ interest without causing pain to their parents. My wife and I sat down with our children who are 4 and 7 and they were entertained and quiet through the entire 90 minutes. We had a few laughs over the subtle adult humor that the animators managed to sneak in a few times and I never found my self checking my watch. The plot is predictible and the characters are somewhat unique but it’s a fun choice for family movie night. Over the next week I will get a better idea about whether they want to rewatch it like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs or not but at the very least I would recommend renting this dvd.

Recommended for Rental/Purchase.

Special Features:

Planet 51 is available on DVD and Blu Ray/DVD combo pack beginning on March 9th.