Movie review and director interview: Battle for Terra

by Alex Bentley

Aside from the obvious, it's always very easy to tell an animated film from an established studio (Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks) from those who are trying desperately to join the party (pretty much everyone else). The former studios actually pay attention to little things like story and emotional connection (most of the time, at least), while the latter just pack their films with movie stars in the hopes you won't notice that their films don't quite warrant such star power.

Such is the case with Battle for Terra, which tries to distinguish itself by bringing an original sci-fi story to the animated realm, but ends up being a copycat by packing its cast to the gills with above-the-title voice actors. Much like last year's The Tale of Despereaux, one must grab some oxygen before listing them off: Rosanna Arquette, Brian Cox, David Cross, Beverly D'Angelo, Chris Evans, James Garner, Danny Glover, Mark Hamill, Justin Long, Amanda Peet, Ron Perlman, Dennis Quaid, Danny Trejo, Luke Wilson, and (gasp) Evan Rachel Wood.

The biggest problem with all that talent is, save for a few exceptions, none of them have distinctive enough voices to warrant their presence or enough celebrity cachet to put butts in the seats. Pixar tries to fit each part to the best actor; a perfect example is their upcoming film, Up, which stars the ultra-hip Ed Asner and Jordan Nagai, a first-time child actor. On the other hand, Lionsgate, the company behind Terra, apparently thought that getting the “right” vocal talent was a low priority for their film.

So how about the film itself? Well, speaking of Pixar, Battle for Terra owes a small debt to last year's WALL-E. No, it doesn't have Earth-saving robots, but it does have a large group of humans who were forced to leave Earth on a giant spaceship due to the planet becoming uninhabitable. In this case, however, the humans decide they can never go back, so they go in search of another planet that could support life. They think they've found the closest thing in Terra, a planet populated with curious-looking creatures named, well, Terrians.

The main plot of the film involves the unlikely team of Mala (Wood), a Terrian, and Jim (Wilson), a human. Jim is part of a group initial invaders trying to determine if the planet will support them. But when his ship crashes and he is injured, Mala takes him in. It's not long before the two see that, “Aw shucks, we're not that different after all.” This leads Jim to try and help Mala to rescue her father, who's been kidnapped by other humans, and ultimately factors in the actual battle when humans and Terrians face off to decide the fate of Terra.

All of this is really just a bunch of “Can't we all get along?” mumbo-jumbo. The battle is anti-climactic at best because the generalities of the ending, if not the specifics, have been telegraphed by the story for some time. There are also other irksome elements, like the fact that the Terrians use (admittedly cool) flying machines to get around, even though they can fly all by themselves. The 3-D graphics are as good as advertised, but it's hard to get too excited about them when the film doesn't give you a worthy story to back up that imagery.

Battle for Terra has been making the rounds on the film festival circuit for over a year and a half, but the wait was definitely not worth it. With the plethora of 3-D movies hitting screens this year, better to save your hard-earned money for quality entertainment like, say, Up.

I sat down for a one-on-one interview with the director of Battle for Terra, Aristomenis "Meni" Tsirbas, at the Angelika Dallas on Wednesday, April 29, a few hours before the film's screening at the USA Film Festival. Tsirbas was engaging, personable, and obviously passionate about the film, which almost makes me feel bad for giving it a bad critique. Almost. Listen to the 20-minute interview for the following highlights:

* How the film evolved from a short to a feature

* Why funding (or lack thereof) prevented him from making the film as live-action

* Why telling the story from the perspective of the aliens relieved some of his frustrations of the sci-fi genre

* How there were more than a few sci-fi loopholes used in the film

* Why he's not that concerned that WALL-E had a similar environmental message

* How so many big-name stars came to be attached to the film

* How he animated the film toward 3-D even though it wasn't initially going to be released as such