Day 131 + 132 - 5/11 + 5/12/09 - Movie #131
BEFORE: Well, I managed to watch the finale of "The Amazing Race" before I saw the winning team announced in the media - I had to stay out of on-line TV forums and avoid newspapers for a day, but it was worth it. The finale is always emotional, provided I don't know the results in advance. Right now my two favorite words are "season finale" - with the exception of "TAR" and "Heroes", I'm still watching TV from late February. So here comes my chance to catch up - 2 hour-long shows each night (plus a movie), and I'll be current in about 2 months. After "American Idol" and "Survivor" end, I think I'll just have "Rescue Me" to watch this summer, plus the odd episode of "Mythbusters" and "Dirty Jobs", if they're new. The only thing that could slow me down would be if "Top Chef" comes up with some sort of fill-in show for the summer...
Once I catch up on TV, I'll have time for some longer movies, instead of these shorter animated ones.
THE PLOT: A young man learns that he has to find a hidden Earth ship before an enemy alien species does in order to secure the survival of humanity.
AFTER: I thought this would have something to do with a "Titanic"-like storyline, so I was way off. Just like "Treasure Planet", this is about a quest across the galaxy to find a treasure, only the treasure is not gold, it's a lost ship. Don Bluth co-directed this, so again there's a lot of people getting separated from each other, and calling out each other's names incessantly. You may recall the video-game "Space Ace" (with cut scenes also directed by Bluth), which featured a stereotypically buff hero (Ace) who would get zapped by a ray that turned him into a whiny, geeky teen, so that he would chase after the kidnapped, stereotypically buxom heroine, nasally screaming, "I'll save you, Kimm-EEEEEE!"
This sort of thing gets toned down in this film, but it's still there. The movie also suffers from "Silly Alien Sidekick Syndrome", much like "Treasure Planet" did. The action is exciting enough, but I saw the resolution coming a light-year away.
The voice-work is done by Matt Damon (playing, well, a spacefaring Matt Damon...), Drew Barrymore, and Bill Pullman as the humans, and Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo and John Leguizamo as the goony aliens. I think I pegged them all except for Leguizamo.
RATING: 4 out of 10 enemy spacecraft.
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I'm pretty sure I watched this one in the movie theather, as I am a big fan of animation as well as science fiction. It was okay, but I wasn't inspired to watch it multiple times like some other science fiction film.
ReplyDeleteActually, I am a huge fan of the game Space Ace, but I don't think I realized that Don Bluth co-directed this film before I watched it.
BTW, Space Ace was completely animated, so the entire game (san the programing) was done by Don Bluth.