Escape from Planet Earth: Rated “PG” (89 Minutes)
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Rob Corddry, Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Morgan Heit, Jessica Alba
Directed by: Callan Brunker
This delightful, animated film recounts the adventures Astronaut Scorch Supernova (voiced by Fraser) who is something is of a planetary hero to the blue alien population of his world, Baab. Thing is, he really is something of a muscle-bound lunkhead, who (although he is reticent to admit it), totally relies on the wiz-bang tech support of his older (though smaller) nerdy, by-the-rules brother, Gary (voiced by Corddry). Well, Scorch loves the attention that all of his daring rescues garner him so when he is asked to pull off yet another dangerous mission to “The Dark Planet” (we know that planet as Earth), he naturally jumps at the chance.
Well, Gary feels that it is too dangerous but Scorch won’t have any of that and the two brother get into something of a row about it with Gary finally getting fed up with the dismissive way that his brother treats him, so he quits Mission Control. Adding to Gary’s woes, is that his young son, Kip (Heit) has a serious case of hero worship involving his brother. (Go figure, the young lad prefers the spectacular daring heroics of his glory hound uncle to the behind-the-scenes anonymity of his braniac father.) As you can expect, without Gary there to pull his heroic fat out of the fire, Scorch winds up in trouble and winds up getting captured.
When Gary learns of his brother’s troubles, he pleads with his former boss, Lena (Alba) to be allowed to head to Earth to help him out. Only she won’t let him (turns out that she has ulterior motives). So, after consulting with his wife, Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) Gary steals a ship and heads off to Earth. Only once he arrives, he too is captured and discovers that General Shanker (William Shatner); who is in charge of Area 51, where the aliens have been taken has been luring aliens to Earth for years and using their tech to develop Earth Tech (Cell phones, the Internet, search engines, etc.)
Well, this puts a whole new spin on what is really going on here, thus raising the interplanetary stakes rise to new heights. Now it is up to Gary to not only save his brother, but their planet, his beloved family, and the rest of the captured aliens as well. This is a very cute, family-friendly film that offers up not only an interesting story, but some very entertaining laughs as well, and winds up a film that parents will actually won’t mind sitting through when they take their kids to see it.
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Robert J. Sodaro has been reviewing films for some 30 years. During that time, his movie reviews and articles have appeared in numerous print publications, as well as on the web. Subscribe to receive regular articles and movie reviews.
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