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Massawyrm returns from PLANET 51 and deems it uninhabitable!!
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
It’s hard to imagine a theatrically released animated film worse than PLANET 51. The very epitome of everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- that is wrong about modern animated family fare, this tale is most crippled by the fact that it is easily one of the most boring films I’ve seen all year. It was a film so damned dull that you could actively hear all of the kids in the audience shifting in their chairs. One child sitting beside me began playing with the Velcro on her purse to keep herself entertained. Children kicked chairs, parents yawned and every critic in attendance slowly pulled the hair out of their head one by one. The entire experience was awful.
PLANET 51 is a thinly veiled version of ET in reverse. Instead of an adorable alien being left behind on Earth to be befriended by a dorky kid and his strange family, Earth has sent its douchiest astronaut to a distant planet to plant a flag then turn around and come home. But when it turns out the planetary rover (a robot with a dog personality) spends all its time looking at rocks, he shows up to discover a planet of green, SHREK knock offs living in a 1950’s world in which they inexplicably speak English and watch science fiction horror movies about invading humans. Don’t worry – they’re smart enough to MENTION how weird it is that they all speak English and live in the 50’s, so you can totally dismiss it as odd. Discovered by a nerdy kid who realizes the “alien” is friendly and not a threat, he must race around hiding him from an overbearing military and reactionary 50’s stereotypes.
Sadly the only way they can figure out to make this whole thing work is to make the aliens of PLANET 51 even dumber than the frat boy rocket jockey America inexplicably sent as its envoy to another world. The result is an entire cast of completely incompetent, uninteresting characters voiced by people who have ZERO REASON to be in something as incomparably shitty as this. Justin Long is the nerd, Duane “The Rock” Johnson is the Astronaut, Gary Oldman seems to be channeling Hugo Weaving for some unknown reason and Jessica Beil is utterly wasted in a role that could have been voiced by anyone and proves to only be around for her name in the credits. Long and Johnson seem to both be giving it their all despite a complete and utter lack of anything interesting to do, but everyone else seems to be on autopilot (along with everything else in the film.)
Loaded with all the sort of jokes we’re often complaining about, this delivers on the usual farting animals and scatological humor lazy writers are accustomed to falling back on, but even goes so far to grab for a full on dick joke in the form of “That’s a weird place for an antenna.” This doesn’t feel as if it were assembled or constructed as much as it was just throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick. Unfortunately for PLANET 51, nothing does. Everything falls flat. Even the kids failed to laugh at the spate of terrible jokes, making for an eerily quiet theater in which you could hear every cough.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to see this. The kids will be bored to tears and you’ll begin thinking about the least valuable part of your body you can gnaw off in order to get out of the theater with your dignity. To be avoided at all costs. End of story.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
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First.
Thank you very much. -
I'm drunk and hate movies. Hooray!
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night at Drafthouse South. If so, you looked just like your avatar. I wanted to commend you on your brilliand Twilight review!
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Quarter to three... noone in the place 'cept you and me....
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- is a turkey. You just blew my mind.
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I am a bit drunk. The opinions expressed by this talkbacker are not necessarily those of the same talkbacker sober. Thank you :)
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that doesn't make sense. I mean she's not exactly noted for her acting range, so if she's in a shit movie, that's not a waste is it? If it was Glenn Close, or Judi Dench or Meryl Streep - now that would be a waste, surely?
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There's nothing like a franchise! If this piece of excrement crawls over a hundred mil international we can get the sequel into multiplexes by Christmas! Why not? WHO CARES IF IT'S GOOD OR NOT????
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"voiced by people who have ZERO REASON to be in something as incomparably shitty as this" Actually they have many zeroes as reason for being in it. Many zeroes preceded by a large number, itself preceded by a dollar sign.
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...that came up with this one?
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That's how her last name is spelled. I before E except after C, fool. It's a basic spelling rule. But it's AICN, where spelling, grammar, ethics, and punctuality don't matter.
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I can't fucking wait lemme tell you all. Christ, I haven't even seen PLANET 501 or whatever the fuck it's called but I can't wait for the sequel. I love it! I CAN'T WAIT! I'll die if there aren't at least four sequels to PLANET 51! Its the best movie evah. I love it just from teh trailer. I can't get enough of those same old lazy (but cleverly transplanted) pop culture references translated into the ALL NEW milieu of an alien planet! HA HA! They're aliens who r exactly like us! They have back yards! I'm holding my sides. Ow! I'm heading over to TWITTER 2 chek 4 n upd8! Sorry, I am very drunk. I'm sure you all worked very hard on this film but that doesn't make it not shit.
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These is just another one of those crappy CG animated flicks that you find out about by accident by seeing the poster, and imagining "how the fuck did this get produced?"
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...I'm hoping Tokyo.
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For crying out loud.
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yes, I'm drunk. And you know what? *kisses hand*Iss bootiful. :)
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Lemme have some fun, Jack.
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when you could bet on almost every CGI animated movie being good? it really did happen. then i think it was shark tales or something that started making audiences say, "waitaminute.. whats going on here? this isnt very good, is it?"
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So wasted she didn't know she was voicing a movie.
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It rilly is time for bed. G'night evvvybody... *burp* I hoope you still respect me tomorrow
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love all you, guys. I feel like you are the only ones who understand me. well...*bburrrrpp*... *hic*G'night
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I shit my pants.
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Nov 20, 2009 9:31:39 AM CST
...Australia, that explains it a couple of different ways...
by flickapoo
...carry on...carry on...
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...that's like Joseph of Arimathea carving "AAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH..." while dying in THE HOLY GRAIL.
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You beat me to the holy grail reference, but I was gonna say: perhaps he was dictating!
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Hey, has anyone seen that PLANET 51?Looks awright. Funny and that.Ok. Going now.
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Now that I know the voice cast, you're going to tell me someone in marketing DIDN'T want to put "LONG - JOHNSON" across the top of the theatrical poster? What is the world coming to?
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If you had a part in the making of AREA 41 I just want to say, that's okay. I know you did your best. Unless you are a studio exec. In which case, proceed directly to jail. DO not pass GO. Do not collect two hundred million dollars. you motherfuckers are dead to me.
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I reckon I'll move here.
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wish i was drunk
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I thought the concept was a decent one. Ah well.
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Nov 20, 2009 9:58:50 AM CST
This review aside, the main reason I KNOW this movie will suck?
by scarywaitress
The goddam trailer I just saw on youtube. You know the one I mean, the one where they have all the voice actors explaining the movie to us like we're three-year-olds, laying out the plot, explaining the motivations of their characters. Oh yeah, Justin? The animation is like nothing you've seen before? I guess you must have been living in a hut in the Himalayas, then, because it looks JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER CG MOVIE. Are you kidding me with this?I like the Rock. A LOT. I even understand that he took this for the deneros. I get it. I even respect it. What I CAN'T countenance is this bullshit interview-style motherfucking "sneak-preview" trailer.GODDAM IT.
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is in first year of film school I bet.
awww...he's just discovered the internet.
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Only with green instead of blue aliens.
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...just to see a review with a sentence that starts out "Long and Johnson..."
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Lobotomized, sodomized, and all sorts of -ized.
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Yeah, I keep hyping this film but holy shit what can I say? IT IS GOOD. Wanna take the kids to see a family film that's actually FUN, that kicks ass and touches your heart and makes YOU wanna see it again? Go thee hence to Astro Boy (if it's still playing in any theaters in your area). It's this decade's Iron Giant - an underrated little gem. As for "Planet 51", the production design alone has turned me off of it. Rubbery-looking, faintly repugnant characters and doggy-go-pee-pee jokes, oh YEAH, I'll drop 10 bucks on that. Looks like the Dreamworks/Sony Animated Comedy Formula, which tastes like farts. The public needs to smarten up a little and avoid these "comedies". Maybe then we'd get more good stuff like Kung Fu Panda and Incredibles and, yes, Astro Boy. You know, films that not only do not suck but are FUN TO WATCH. If we reward Hollywood crap, we'll get more Hollywood crap. Planet 51=pass.
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...you guys would eat it up. Seriosly, I tried to watch that rat cook movie(Ratatatoulie?) and it was unfuckingbearable.
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...where it was actually funny. BENDER (Having turned Human): My antenna's gone! Nah, it just moved. I'm not getting good reception on it though. Maybe if I wiggle it around a little... FRY: Bender, no! You'll make God cry!
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You can't tell anything from those previews.
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is a decent idea, but upon seeing the trailer, the execution looks way off.I would like to have seen what Pixar could have done with the same premise.
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Nov 20, 2009 3:09:44 PM CST
Bullshit Sailor Rip; If it was PIXAR, it'd get ripped HARDER!
by tomonicker
Hell, Pixar isn't made of gold... most of their stuff has been above the general PAR, but some stuff isn't going to be universal... I've seen every PIXAR so far, and I thought CARS was lame, but many people disagree and kids seem to dig it. Area 51 pissed me off with it's craptacular trailer, and I knew it was shit already.
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ASTRO BOY was hugely entertaining and will hopefully find an audience.
This, on the other hand, looks like it was made for and by children. I don't see why anyone here should bother with it. Good review, though. -
are actually responsible for a movie.
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critics slobbered all over a Pixar movie. What's up?
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Nov 20, 2009 11:21:42 PM CST
soup74...yeah, Shark Tale was the beginning of the end
by nasty in the pasty
There must have been some bad CGI animated films before then, but that was the first one where I walked out shrugging and thinking, "Yeah, that was pretty lame." Five years later, I think back on it and realize I would have HATED it were it released today. I just remember the first batch of CGI movies, from roughly 1998 through 2002, and that I enjoyed almost all of them (never saw Jimmy Neutron, though), but after Shrek 2, the non-Pixar CGI films started to get VERY scattershot. This year has been an improvement (even Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs was surprisingly great), but there are still misses like Planet 51 and Ice Age 3 (and I really like the first Ice Age, but God, how the third one just lay there) scattered around.
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must have some bills to pay to do ashit movie like this......haven't seen it but i knew it would be gay from the get go.
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It's "The Rock," for crying out loud. It's not like it's Peter O'Toole... oh wait, he did "Supergirl." Never mind...
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ASTRO BOY I thought was AMAZING - it's gotten me so interested in the original manga/anime, and I've discovered a whole new universe I absolutely love. I'm really disappointed the movie didn't do better in the US, because nitpicks aside, it really does respect the original IMO and has a great deal of heart, something that's becoming rarer and rarer, and I hope at the end of the day with international markets, merchandise, and buy-to-own copies, it'll do well. I can already tell from the trailers Planet 51 doesn't have any soul, and Astro Boy really did. Most fun movie of the summer IMO - go see it if you can still find it! (I saw it twice, and that's an incredibly rare thing for me to do, but it's just too much fun!)
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Just perfect in every way.
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When you wake up, you should go write your thoughts in "Hangover" thread.
Wheee! -
that the premise of the movie rips off an old cartoon based on Buzz Lightyear?
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Thanks for the review, Massa. From the trailer, I had a feeling this film would be a producer-bullied barrel of shit and corporately controlled "family fun."
Meaning: stinky, stupid, and insulting, even to children.
Oh well.
Not that was giving a shit in the first place.
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Sorry.
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*HURRRRLLLLGLHHGLLHGHHGL**cough* Oh, wow. Really sorry, you guys. Hope I didn't get any on you. Fuck. That was a new shirt too.
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Just saw it with my 6 year old. Even he knew it sucked. It has more suckage than any animated movie in memory. Horrible acting a story that dragged, characters that are forgetful and ploy elements that are beyond horrible. Not to mention ripoffs from back to the future, ET, direct quotes, sounds, and imagery from star wars, and Cars. It also had a near kiss between a man and boy who end up dancing. NAMBLA would be proud. Just sick. Also a very inappropriatel penis joke in this PG animated movie aimed at children. Oh and they made an almost F bomb joke " what the .....duck?". Yeah. Aliens live in 1950s looking America that looks like a Marty mcfly is about to appear any second complete literally with a town square and a hint at a clock tower plus that gas station scene when u drive up and attendants pounce on your car and spruce it up. All this plus more makes this an ipecac gulping eye gouging nightmare of agonizing proportions.
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Visually it's obviously amazing. If Cameron Makes it a great humane story it will be s winner
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Took my kids to see this. Awful. Boring. And inexplicably pointless. Kids movies are supposed to beat you over the head with a message, but this one couldn't even be bothered to impart so much as a platitude. Lazy film making.
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What's up with the Rock?? Did someone cut off his dick?I understand he has kids and so he's doing the whole kiddie film thing but there has to come a time when executives are going to look at him and wonder if he can be that box office hit that he has the potential to be.He's just been making utter crap lately and that tooth fairy movie looks god awful.Disney must be paying him a shit load of money for him to be making this stuff.The Rundown was such a fun movie it seems like eons ago that that film was made and showed promise of a great action movie star in the making
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They were terrified at the opening scene and then bored for the rest of the flick. Painfully bad film. My 4-year old daughter turned to me after the penis joke and said, "Did they see his peter?" "Yes." I said. She said, "That's not right." She's four. Yup. She thought the robot dog was cute.
This is what happens when computer animation falls into the hands of morons. Not. One. Laugh. -
I watched this movie with a headache, so maybe that affected my opinion, but it was so boring...I kept waiting for it to be over.
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That is your only chance to save yourself at that point. Maybe it's because you can't review a film you haven't seen in its entirely but I bail on shitty movies all the time. I don't go see them at the theater but have in the past..walked out of Sky Captain and Harry and the Hendersons way back in the day. And certainly turned a lot of DVDs off about 10 min into them..sometimes the suck is abundantly clear early on.
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