Nate’s Thoughts on Planet 51

PLOT: American astronaut Captain Charles “Chuck” Baker lands on Planet 51 thinking he’s the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders…like Chuck. (IMDB)

The GOOD:
1. Really interesting concept that shifted the whoe classic “E.T.” story with aliens hiding a human instead of vice versa
2. Some good pop culture jokes, mainly surrounding Ridley Scott’s film “Alien”.
3. Some very good voice work, especially by John Cleese and Gary Oldman.
4. Bright and colorful world and, while not pixar or even dreamworks quality, it is pretty to look at.
5. Kids will eat it up.

The BAD:
1. All the characters are pretty much stock characters, we’ve seen them before despite the fact that they are in the bodies of different characters. Every character will feel familiar.
2. Well, much like the characters, the story is also extremely predictable. As soon as the story gets started you pretty much know all that is going to happen.

OVERALL: While there is plenty to like about it with it’s great concept and brightly colored world, it just seems to suffer what most animated films suffer from, and that is the predictability of the story and the usage of stock characters make the film rather unenjoyable at times. However, I feel strongly that kids will have a great time with it, but still, i’ve got to give it a 4.5 out of 10.