Review of Escape from Planet Earth (2013) by Doug B — 17 Feb 2013

Of all the movies, I never expected Escape from Planet Earth to have an homage to the Oscar winning silent film, The Artist. And yet, here it is. And it's moments like that one, that makes this cute animated film worth watching, even though it is clearly intended for a younger audience than myself.

From the start, the dialogue is well written, snappy and fast paced. There are a lot of really funny jokes aimed at the parents in the audience scattered throughout the movie, and those jokes are delivered very nicely by the voice cast. Ricky Gervais is excellent as the voice of the computer and Brendan Fraser is spot-on as the dim-witted, superhero-like uncle. His character actually reminded me of Captain Qwark, from the Ratchet and Clank video game series.

There is some creatively clever use of stock footage at a drive-in, and also when we get to see the aliens' historical view of Earth for the first time. There's also a really funny 1950's style welcome video when our heroes finally reach Earth. Amusingly, that is when we're introduced to even more alien species. But this is one of the film's lesser points.

Besides the Greys (who are great), the three quirky alien sidekicks are kind of bland. I think it's a problem with the way they are written. All three seem to be occupying the place of one well written supporting character. Instead we have these three that aren't well developed, and really aren't all that interesting. But, they are a part of the food fight scene, which was my favorite part of the film, so I'll give them a little credit for that. The food fight is where we find The Artist, and even a Keystone cops-like moment. The music in this scene is excellent, but unfortunately, that is not always the case.

There are some odd music choices throughout. Pop songs are used at times for unknown reasons, and in other places, the music doesn't really fit with the mood of the scene it's supporting. That took me out of the story a little.

The only time I was really reminded of the film's target audience were the scenes with the little kid. You can really feel the film talking directly to the 4-8 year old set there. I felt the animation skewed a little younger as well, everything is smooth and shiny, but that never got in the way of the story.

And now a word from the film's target audience. My eight year old daughter loved Escape from Planet Earth. Her favorite character was Kira Supernova, her favorite scene was at the very end (which I won't spoil here), and she didn't think the 3D was worthwhile. So as Kira Supernova says to her husband, "Turn off your brain and hang on!" Especially if you've got kids.