Planet 51
2009
*
Director: Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad, Marcos Martínez
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Gary Oldman, Seann William Scott, John Cleese, Freddie Benedict
In the 1950s, classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, and War of the Worlds (1953) created an entire subgenre of alien invasion movies. Some 50 odd years later, this incredibly boring 3D animation flips the scenario around. When a goofy modern-day astronaut lands on Planet 51, the green lizardy population fears that their beloved humaniac invasion movies have become reality. The premise shows a tiny bit of promise, but when the planet turns out to be like America in the 1950s and its inhabitants nothing more than green-tinted Americans, the story runs out of ideas in about ten minutes. The end result is like a reverse Iron Giant with a bit of Wall-E minus charm, wit, humour or originality.
