Review of Titan A.E. (2000) by Daniel B — 24 Aug 2009

This was a movie with great potential and some fantasic CGI sequences that had several major flaws. An all-star cast, great special effects, and a compelling storyline premise made this one seem very promising. It came out two years after The Prince of Egypt had pioneered the technique of mixing CGI with traditional animation on the big screen. However, all of the following prevented this movie from becoming a blockbuster sci-fi classic:

1. The CGI greatly overshadows the traditional animation. Rather than blending together in an organic way as they did in P of E, the CGI and trational animation contrast sharply in this movie. The CGI is all richly textured, intricately detailed, and carefully choreographed to make all the motion realistic. The traditional animation, on the other hand, lacks texture, details, and attention to light and shadow and is poorly blended with the CGI. It's roughly the quality of animation you might expect from a Saturday morning cartoon, and all the friendly aliens, done in traditional animation, have very cartoonish appearances & mannerisms. It thus leaves the impression of an unfinished product.

2. The villians are uninteresting. This was the second most glaring plot weakness in an otherwise very compelling plot. We get little about their history and get no view into the inner workings of their world. Because they are a collective mind (a fact nowhere mentioned in the movie which I only learned from the DVD special features), there is no single arch-nemesis character. Their only stated motive for wreaking havoc on the human race is an irrational fear of humankind's potential, which is not only a poor way of accounting for the virulence of their hatred but also lacks any parallelism with the main protagonist's internal struggle with his own demons. Which brings us too...

3. The single most glaring plot weakness: the bizarre, sudden, and unlikely personality changes one character undergoes as that charater's loyalties change. I hope it won't be spoiling the plot to say that one of the main characters goes turncoat, but it is terribly unclear what is motivating this character as this character's loyalties and willingness to cooperate swing back and forth unpredictably. None of the rationales are convincing, and what we end up with is a superficial character who serves to drive the plot along but fails to be even believable, much less interesting, as a character.

4. Although this movie had some great music, it didn't have a true soundtrack. This was another feature that gave this movie an unfinished feel; the "soundtrack" is more like a mix-tape than an actual motion picture soundtrack. There is no ambient music whatsoever, nothing tailored to punctuate the dramatic moments or set the emotional tone for a given scene. What music there is plays during montages and action sequences, merely in order to fill in for the temporary suspension of the dialogue.

Even with its flaws, this is still an entertaining movie. It could have become a classic were it not for all the shortcuts it tried to take. Even given the lack of attention given to the music & animation, this movie could still have captured more fans' hearts if the plot had been more carefully developed. The main character has great pathos and a well-developed personality, but too many of the other characters' actions are governed by plot-moving considerations rather than by their own essences as characters. This combination of plot problems and quality problems reduced a movie with the potential for greatness to mediocrity.