Binary Review: Escape From Planet Earth

Being a father of a 4 year old, whether you like or not, you become a viewer of kids movies. I don’t mind so much, most are actually quite good and are increasingly being tailored and made with adults in mind with subtle humor, references, and innuendos that harmlessly go over most kids’ heads. Dreamworks studio, the maker of Shrek, is pretty good at it. Except for this movie…

Escape From Planet Earth is a movie that is over the top from start to finish and made for kids and left the older audience out of the equation. Monsters Vs. Aliens, Shrek, Wreck It Ralph, anything by Pixar, Despicable Me are movies I can and do watch repeatedly and enjoy. I went into this latest Dreamworks creation assuming the same equation would apply, I was sadly disappointed.

Escape from Planet Earth follows two aliens, Scorch and Gary. Scorch is the alien planet’s star astronaut and Gary is his weaker, smarter brother that works in Mission Control helping Scorch through his missions. Scorch gets sent to The Dark Planet, which is Earth, to save all the other aliens that came here and vanished. There is a small mystery to why, a crazy General character at Area 51, and a wacky rescue mission to get Scorch back.

The characters are flat, the dialogue repeats its self over and over, the jokes are non-existent and when there is one it’s poor attempt at potty humor. After watching the credits the powerhouse of voice actors couldn’t help the bad writing. It’s too bad too because the visuals were top of the line.

I was bored through the whole thing, my 4 year old asked to go home about 15 minutes before the end because it was boring, and the other kids in the audience were in the same boat. This movie is a shade under 1hr. 30min. Our last movie trip with the 4 yr old was Wreck It Ralph and he was enthralled the whole time, so it’s not that he can’t sit through a movie…. he can’t sit through a bad one.

If you must have a movie event and this is the only kids one out then it will work. But I will not be adding this to the home collection when it hits DVD and won’t go out of my way to watch it again.

Sorry Dreamworks, you missed the mark big time on this one.

Start focusing on story and less on visuals and you won’t have to look at a 25% cut in your workforce.

Binary Review 1 out of 4.

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Binary Blogger

Binary Blogger has spent 20 years in the Information Security space currently providing security solutions and evangelism to clients. From early web application programming, system administration, senior management to enterprise consulting I provide practical security analysis and solutions to help companies and individuals figure out HOW to be secure every day.

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