Cute premise: an alien world where the green-skinned indigenous population live a ’50s-style pleasantville existence interrupted only by their paranoia about the brain-eating “humaniacs” they see at the B-movies. Cranking E.T. into reverse, Planet 51 crash-lands doofus spaceman Chuck (Dwayne Johnson) on to the surface – then runs flat out of ideas.
Degenerating into a jumble of kiddie slapstick and pointless chases, the story sees science student Lem (Justin Long) attempt to get Chuck home before he’s captured by General Grawl (Gary Oldman) and has his brain removed. Sadly, that fate would appear to have already befallen Oscar-nommed Shrek writer Joe Stillman, who riffs on every sci-fi flick he can think of without coming up with anything clever, funny or involving. Well, apart from a love story between the NASA robo-rover (read: WALL•E) and a pet mini-alien.
That aside, just another reminder of how good Pixar really are. This is from Ilion Animation.
