by Alex Bentley

Planet 51 has its share of fun moments, but it falls well short of the non-stop entertainment of top recent animated films.

Movie studios love to play chicken when it comes to making films with similar plots. Dante's Peak and Volcano were released within three months of each other back in 1997, while Armageddon and Deep Impact both threatened the earth with falling celestial objects a year later. More recently, Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Observe and Report faced off for the “Best Mall Cop” movie title, which neither won despite Paul Blart making much more money.

While not as obvious as those competitions, the basic premise of the new Planet 51 does bear an uncanny similarity to Battle for Terra, which came out earlier this year. Both animated films involve humans invading an alien planet for their own purposes only to discover/be opposed by creatures that are already inhabiting said planet. They both also have a human astronaut who ends up having to be helped by the native creatures after running into trouble soon after landing.

However, whereas Battle for Terra dealt with such serious topics as the environment and the morality of war, Planet 51 is your more typical animated film, featuring references to other sci-fi films and lots of comedy. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Chuck Baker, the aforementioned NASA astronaut who lands on the so-called Planet 51 thinking that he's the first to ever set foot there, only to be confronted with a not-so-advanced alien race. In fact, the beings appear to have modeled their society after 1950s America, replete with a town square, full service gas stations, and diner, which gives the film a distinct Back to the Future feel.

Baker just happens to land in the backyard of Lem (Justin Long), who's really the main character of the film. Lem inadvertently becomes Baker's protector, hiding him from the army, which is led by General Grawl (Gary Oldman) and given “expert” advice on how to deal with the invader by Professor Kipple (John Cleese). Lem has to balance that duty with his attempts at impressing Neera (Jessica Biel), the girl next door. He's helped in these matters by his best friend, Skiff (Seann William Scott), brother Eckle (Freddie Benedict), and a robot named Rover that (obviously, given the name) acts like a dog.

Planet 51 is a movie of simple pleasures, in that there aren't many nuances to its storytelling. The majority of the jokes in the film come from seeing how the “aliens” do everything that we're used to seeing humans do, but with their own unique twist. Hamburgers on the grill glow and float, the beings' “hair” consists of just a few thick strands, and they have dogs that look and act like the alien from Alien.

Although the use of big name stars is not as egregious as in some animated films, the star power is mostly negligible in this film. Aside from Biel, not one voice is instantly recognizable, and that includes Johnson, whose voice seems to have been artificially heightened (not helium high, but enough to make a difference). There's also the fact that Planet 51 is one of the few computer-animated films this year to not take advantage of 3D technology. While it's debatable as to whether that would've helped the film or not, there's nothing remarkable about the animation as it is.

Planet 51 has its share of fun moments, but it falls well short of the non-stop entertainment of top recent animated films.

What do you think?