What a clunker. Though billed as coming from “the world of Cars” – that would be Pixar’s 2006 hit about talking race cars – this spin-off is a co-production of DisneyToon Studios and India’s Prana Animation Studios. (It was also reportedly first intended to go direct-to-DVD before reversing course for a theatrical release in the traditional dumping ground that is August.) None of that backstory would have mattered, of course, had Planes been a superior film, but it’s as low-flying as its crop-duster hero, Dusty Crophopper (vanilla-voiced by Dane Cook), who dreams of overcoming his humble origins and fear of heights to compete in an around-the-world aerial race.
A charmless, schematic, aspirational film, Planes scotches the visual promise teased in its globe-trotting premise; a pretty fly-by of the Taj Mahal is the only site on this world-geography sprint that stands out. And the script, by Jeffrey M. Howard (who previously penned a series of Tinker Bell movies for Disney), crudely draws the international assembly – a hot-blooded Mexican racer is trailed by mariachi players, while in India sacred cows have been replaced by tractors – and mistakes crassness for risk-taking. (If I were a parent, I would riot at the film’s chirpy reveal – SPOILER ALERT – that Old Yeller takes a bullet. By the way: Planes’ “spoiler alert” is a postscript, not a preface. Assholes.) The occasional amusing moment notwithstanding (a split-personality, German flying car got giggles for sheer bizarreness), Planes is a hunk of junk, its autopilot course set to buckets of money wrung from families looking for something like Lightning McQueen to strike again. No such luck.
This article appears in August 9 • 2013.
