Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
5/21/09
I'm a peace-loving guy; really,
I am. But that doesn't mean that the ideal state of the real world
makes for good cinema. In fact, I could argue that it's just about
impossible to make a fun story that argues for peace without at least one
kick-ass action sequence. Battle for Terra, a two-year-old
animated action extravaganza that saw theatrical release thanks to a 3D
retrofitting by Lionsgate, gets off to a very peaceful, and kinda dull,
start before settling in for some truly impressive (albeit derivative)
pyrotechnics that had me itchin' to give peace a chance... with a vengeance.
This isn't high-end animation or 3D, but sci-fi action fans with a pacifist
heart should have a ball.
On a distant planet, we meet
Mala (voice of Evan Rachel Wood), one of a race of tadpole-like aliens
who live in harmony with nature. One day, a huge object appears in
the sky. There's much debate as to what it might be, with many of
the planet's residents believing it's “a new God”. Mala defies her
father (Dennis Quaid), who wants to simply accept whatever the local Elders
decide it is, and builds a telescope, with which she sees a giant spaceship
releasing smaller vessels which attack the community, abducting citizens
who happily present themselves to be taken. When her father is abducted,
Mala tries to get the fighters to take her too, but only succeeds in downing
one of them. She recovers the human pilot, Lt. Jim Stanton (Luke
Wilson) and takes him back to her home. He's dying, and a talking
robot named Giddy (David Cross), who teaches her to speak English, shows
her how to use native materials to build a small oxygen tent for him.
The atmosphere on this planet is poisonous to humans, but his suit and
the chamber allow him to recover, and he agrees to take Mala back to his
mothership if she'll help him get his own craft back. They do, and
he flies her to The Ark, a giant vessel containing the last remnants of
humanity after a war between Earth and its' colonies on Mars and Venus
destroyed all three worlds. The Ark is failing, with constant technical
glitches and only enough air left for a few more months. But General
Hemmer (Brian Cox) believes this planet, which he calls Terra, will provide
man with a new home: the machine that generates the Ark's air is
capable of terraforming a world, and he plans to use it to wipe out Terra's
indigenous population in favor of an environment humans can sustain.
Stanton doesn't want to go along, but when Hemmer threatens his brother
Stewart (Chris Evans), he falls in line. The Ark's leaders want to
give more thought to alternatives, but for the General, there's only one
choice: all out war between the Terrans and Humans, in which only
one race can survive.
As a work of animation, Battle
for Terra is kinda retro: the landscapes and special effects
are impressive, but the character animation is a bit simplistic.
And while some of the 3D effects (particularly nifty use of snow) are cool,
this is the least three-dimensional of the new digital 3D releases I've
seen, probably because the movie wasn't originally designed for the format.
But it's only fair that it be a visual throwback, because the best parts
of its' plot are cobbled together from movies like Star Wars, Independence
Day and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But the
movie's major novelty is the point of view, depicting a battle between
humans and aliens for a planet from the alien point of view. Some
will view this as self-loathing liberalism, but what it really does is
allow us to view the Terra Problem in a way few of us look at wars anymore:
by asking if there isn't some other way to achieve the goals of both sides.
The movie even takes the retro position that it was warmongering rather
than environmental ruin that pushed the humans onto the Ark in the first
place. Because the stakes are nothing less than survival or extinction,
the action climax is chock-full of gravity, and I admit to crying twice
in the last ten minutes.
All of which is a good thing,
because Battle for Terra doesn't exactly start off like a house
afire. The opening scenes depicting life on the planet and the disagreements
about the alien visitors are, to put it mildly, a bit dry. But once
the action shifts to The Ark and Brian Cox shows up to invest Hemmer with
his trademark cheerful ruthlessness (this is, after all, the man who uttered
the immortal line “Burn it all! Burn Troy!” in Troy), things
pick up in a hurry. The Terrans are good and true and certainly don't
deserve to be exterminated (has any PG-rated movie ever threatened to suffocate
more characters?), but they don't exactly set the screen on fire as characters.
Cox leads a solid vocal cast
which has assigned name actors to play even the smallest roles. Wood
makes a solid protagonist, while there's something innately decent about
the sound of Wilson's voice that makes him a perfect choice for the only
man with a chance to bridge the cultural divide. James Garner, as
one of the Elders, nails an excellent speech late in the game, but most
of the names (including Justin Long, Danny Glover and Amanda Peet) are
only here to appear on the poster.
Bottom line: Battle
for Terra 3D steals from the best when it comes to concocting its'
slam-bang action sequences and provides a nice sci-fi framework within
which to examine our tendency to favor the fast, violence answer over the
smart one when times get tough. A spoonfull of whoop-ass helps this
pro-social medicine go down pretty nicely. |
