Planet 51

Welcome back to my blog from a much too long absence (again). Over the weekend, I saw the animated movie, Planet 51. It was a sparse crowd (only 4 of us) probably because everyone else was at either New Moon or The Blind Side. Knowing that I have gone through a bit of a withdrawal at seeing movies and that in a month I will need to start my Oscar-watching viewing, I chose to get back into watching what I assumed to be a 'cute, simple kids movie'. Anmiated movies seem to have changed. It seems like instead of enjoying a cute animated story, we must make a political statement. In this case, that people not like ourselves are not bad simply because their different. While I agree, I would rather have the "A-ha" moment come to me rather than feeling forced to feel a certain way. We don't necessarily all respond well to force. The animation seemed good. The voice-over work was ok, Gary Oldman and Seann William Scott seemed to be the saving grace. John Cleese wasn't featured enough and could have been funny but wound up being irritating. Duane Johnson, besides not sounding like himself, seemed somewhere between trying too hard and not caring about the lines...considering that the lines were written by the writer of Shrek, very surprising. Speaking of which the animation gravitated between Shrek and Wall-E but not as good as either one; especially the former. I think a couple of times there was humor that was a bit adult-themed. I think most people would feel a bit bored at times but young boys would appreciate it the most for the space/alien topic. Overall, I enjoyed this movie as a simple sidebar to fill time in between other tasks...1 thumb up pointing to the galaxy to wonder if there is intelligent life out there--or at least over in Hollywood.