Movie Review by Plugged In
Planet 51 is a distant world in a far away galaxy that's filled with a bustling community of little green men. Cue the ominously eerie outer space music.
Or, don't. 'Cause these little green men--and women and boys and girls--are a perfectly pleasant group of friends and family with four-fingered hands, mop-top heads and the cutest little antennas you've ever seen. They live in a world that's much like our 1950s: comic books, rock 'n' roll, barbecues with the neighbors and Saturday afternoon matinees.
Speaking of matinees, these folks are all eagerly looking forward to seeing Humaniacs III, the latest sci-fi flick about large alien invaders who plunder their world and kill all their puppies. These B-movie humanoid monsters are really scary. But teenager Lem doesn't get all worked up over them anymore. Especially since he got his new job as the junior assistant to the assistant curator at the local astronomy museum and observatory.
Lem is determined to be a good example for all the kids who visit on field trips. And no matter how much his comic book-loving pal Skiff rants about brain-eating aliens, Lem knows the truth: In the whole vast 500 miles of know universe, there is no such thing as a space-traveling Humaniac.
Ulp!
Lem's got a lot to learn about outer space, it seems. Because before he can say "close encounters of the Caucasian kind" three times fast, a human astronaut named Chuck lands in his backyard.
Now it's up to Lem to somehow convince the planet that this visitor from the great beyond
isn't a terrible monster after all. (But keep your puppies tied up, just in case.)
You've heard of the mysterious military base somewhere out in Nevada called Area 51, right? You know, the place where the UFOs and aliens were all hidden away back in the 1950s? Well, this movie is about Planet 51, a world full of aliens that are all stuck in the '50s. You see the joke there? Get it? Huh?
Good, because that slight giggle and one sight gag (that you've already seen if you've seen the movie's trailer) are about as close to earnest chuckles as you get in this whole 90-minute pic. It's not that the flipped-on-its-head idea of a world of peace-loving little green men confronted by a scary human from outer space isn't potentially cute and high-flying. It is. But the creative team that executed said idea--three rookie directors and Shrek co-writer Joe Stillman--just never got the rocket ship off the ground. Or out of the toilet.
SOURCE: Plugged In
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