Planet 51 (2009)
Directed by Jorge Blanco
When Earth astronaut Capt. Chuck Baker arrives on Planet 51 -- a world reminiscent of American suburbia circa 1950 -- he tries to avoid capture, recover his spaceship and make it home safely, all with the help of an empathetic little green being.
2 connections found
View:
2 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Planet 51 to
If you have a problem with Dreamworks' penchant for poaching from other movies, then by comparison to Planet 51 , their work seems like subtle homage: co-directors Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez (first-timers all) shamelessly steal from E.T., WALL-E, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Back to the Future and The Right Stuff, among many, many others, and uses none of them in a way that respects their influence, much less acknowledges it.
He is, in a sly reference to “The Right Stuff” which is also overtly cited, little more than “spam in a can.”
This film by committee has three directors – Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad and Marco Martinez – that foregoes originality and attempts to dazzle with refs to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Right Stuff” numerous times, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “Alien,” “Singing in the Rain” (!?), “Star Wars,” “Terminator”….
What Woo has been sure to leave in are the battle scenes, which are large-scale spectacles that are unlike anything we’ve seen in this country since Master and Commander or Braveheart.