Escape from Planet Earth is the kind of animated film that all parents should dread…
Directed by Cal Brunker,Escape from Planet Earthmarks The Weinstein Companys first major animated family film.
The studio once, long ago, spearheaded the cult classic seriesReBoot(1994-2001).
Gary Supernova (Robb Corddry) has problems.
His brother Scorch (Brendan Fraser) is the astronaut icon who the entire planet fawns over and adores.
Too bad they cant liberate this movie from its own.
Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson and George Lopez voice these supposedly funny guys.
They even randomly squeeze Sofia Vergara into it for five seconds.
Unfortunately inEscape from Planet Earth, they are here almost solely for the name recognition.
The worst sin is they got Ricky Gervais to voice a machine in this film.
What a wasted opportunity.
Visually, the film is very bright and harmless enough.
It features some generic and barely noticeable 3D because all family films after James CameronsAvataro do so.
Generally, the inhabitants of Baab look the same with large blue faces and round eyes.
Otherwise, theyre indistinguishable.
The overall path of the movie is standard squabbling siblings affair.
Nobody is demanding massive plot twists in a kids movie.
However, is it too much to make us care?
Neither brother is very likable.
Did Harvey not want to pay Dick Dale again to reuse Misirlou fromPulp Fictionfor the umpteenth time?
Anyway,Escape from Planet Earthis completely generic and standard family movie fare.
But must we really have such low standards for our kids entertainment?
We should be able to ask for something more for their sake as well as ours.
