Review of Planes (2012) by Maineutral R — 21 Jul 2014

Pretty much Cars all over again, using every single cliché in the book, except with planes now. Sounds like money! I mean, idea! Planes is one of those Disney films with the quality of a direct-to-video story, except that this was theatrically released, because...they have to fill-up the schedule along with Frozen for the year, I guess. While it was not a total loss, it wasn't that much of a gain either.

Being a direct-to-video quality movie from Disney, it's not as terrible as, say, Cinderella II or The Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas; hell, it's a lot better than Cars 2, A PIXAR FILM! Also, this isn't necessarily a Disney-Disney film, but a Disneytoons film. What do they do? The freakin' direct-to-video sequels! Now it's not a surprise, eh? Well, now with that out of the way, let's dig in more:

The animation and visuals are great, Oscar-worthy (the only award worthy aspect nevertheless) as it can be expected, and the music (the score, not the featured songs) is also great, delivering an ambience and fitting with the visuals. And the rest is pure crap. Characters are not charming; Dusty is the classic underdog with nothing new, except that...he's a plane. The story is ALSO the underdog classic, or in this case, tired clichéd underdog story, the difference being that...it's with planes. And the jokes...planes. Just kidding, they're just as unfunny as my latter joke: not funny at all and there's a lot of insufferable puns...yes, with planes' stuff. A Plane package is a plane's butt...man, the joke dies long before getting done, and it happens every time a pun is set.

Much like the world of Cars (which properly, but dreadfully, is the same as Planes), it has a lot of non-sense about the mechanics of it. Little bird planes? Why not simply real birds? How does the planet here keeps itself alive without a proper biodiversity? I know it's an animated film, but it still has to work some sense out of it in order to not get distracted from the story. The bad thing is, the story is so cliché, tired and predictable that you just get caught-up in a dead-end, with no reliable side to be comfortable. Then again, I'm kinda of a sucker for visuals, so if I had to come back to watch this thing, it would be only for the visuals, and if I have to entertain some annoying kids, but that's it.

Planes is neither a Disney nor a Pixar film, it's a Dinseytoon film. Much like any other direct-to-video film, kept in mind this in order to withstand its below-the-expectations quality to at least not suffer completely. It's like any other Disneytoon project...except with planes.