Planes - Movie Review

Who's in it?

Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Brad Garrett,  Carlos Alazraqui, and

Teri Hatcher.

What's it about? Planes is a story about a crop duster plane named Dusty with high ambitions to become a racing plane and compete in a famous race around the world named Wings Around the Globe and he sets out to do just that with the help of his two friends Dottie and Chug (Hatcher and Garrett) and his coach Skipper (Keach), an old and permanently grounded war-hero plane.    Planes is from what I call New-Pixar, the makers of ehh and outright cash-cow films such as the Cars 2 with seemingly no memory of what makes a classic children's film such as Toy Story or even it's sequels. Planes was created due to the fact Pixar has raked in a ridiculous amount of money from the franchise of Cars, and it has been announced that Planes will be a trilogy, and to add to that Pixar personified, John Lasseter, has hinted he would like to add boats and trains to the mix, so make of that what you will.  Now that I have my venting out of the way, Planes itself is sadly another meh film. I didn't really have too high expectations considering it is in the vein of Cars, and despite being better than it's counterpart it's still incredibly mediocre for Pixar. While I say I don't like the idea of using the world as a money-making series of movies, some the concepts were really cool. Pixar were indeed on the ball with it's design, things such as planes being birds, tractors as cows (my favourite thing in the Cars world), death being referred to as 'recycling' and the clever naming of the competition's TV host Brent Mustangburger played by sports show host Brent Musburger (he was in Cars 2, but I haven't seen it).   I'm a sucker for good word play. Planes has a basic story, a man (plane?..) has high ambitions and starts from the very bottom to become an underdog, through in a love interest and you have yourself most sports movies ever made. Now this isn't always bad (I know, hypocritical after giving out about horrors being all the same and boring), and I understand writing an entire new story for a sport film is hard, but Pixar does do a good job adding a personal twist on it such as the fact Dusty has a dream of becoming a racing plane despite the fact he is so afraid of heights it can lead to him nearly passing out when he goes to high. There is also a number of other twists that do help keep it fresh, and those are what put this above Cars. It's voiced well, the cast even includes John Cleese (who is pretty much Da Cherry's famous twin, down to the hair and man-stache) who plays the smartly named British plane Bulldog. The script is funny and lines are delivered well, the funniest of all being Carlos Alazraqui's full on stereotyped and lady killing Mexican plane El Chupacabra.   If you see this man walking the streets of Dublin, chances are it's Da Overall Planes is just Cars in the sky with a few new tricks up it's sleeve (Wing? I'm seriously confused myself), and while that's a good thing it just isn't the Pixar I know, love and grew up with, and it's this type of thing that has me worried for the upcoming Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory. As with Smurfs 2 this is a children's film despite a few of the sneaky jokes for adults, but it isn't of the same type. While I was more entertained during Planes, I have to say the same as with Smurfs though and advise renting it and not worth going to see it full price in the cinema because the 3D just isn't worth it and doesn't add much depth. This is just another addition to the 'meh' list of New-Pixar films and while was indeed entertaining, it also was a little disappointing.  Oh, and Nan Cherry accompanied me this time again and only fell asleep once for about 5 minutes, so she definitely liked it. Rating: Tell me what you thought of the movie if you get to see it, if you agree or disagree with me, or if you just think I should keep my rants to myself or get my own blog to fill with negativity to stop ruining this cheerful blog on Facebook, Twitter or in the comments. I always love your feedback,  The (sigh..) Eldest Gorgebag