We took the kid to see the movie Planes this weekend and it was bad. It was like Disney had made another Cars movie with the plans to send it straight to DVD but then changed it to Planes and took away any originality the story may have begun with.
The movie begins as Dusty Crophopper, a crop dusting plane, dreams of leaving the corn fields for an air field to compete in a race around the world. To do so, Dusty must finish in the top five of a regional time trial. Dusty of course has a faithful crew to help him along, Chug a Diesel delivering truck and Dottie a forklift. Dusty barely misses making the cut for the race around the world but through some fortuitous events he eventually qualifies and joins the other planes on the adventure.
Movies geared toward children don’t need complex story lines but do need compelling stories, this movie has neither. The movie moves as quickly as the planes buzzing around the screen with little explanation for what is happening and why. I wanted to ask my daughters if they had any idea about what was happening and I’m sure they both would have been confused.
The best part of the movie was the visual design. There are some scenes that reminded me of Pixar quality movies – this is a Disney but not a Pixar movie. I doubt much of the aerial aerobatics were physically possible but were visually enjoyable. The movie has a happy ending but doesn’t leave the same happy feeling that some other summer movies like Monster’s University and Despicable Me 2. We went to see this movie because were in the mood for a movie and I left just moody.
Mike Dariano 