Mutant Aliens
D: Bill Plympton; with the voices of Dan McComas, Francine Lobis, George Casden, Matthew Brown. (35mm, 83 min.)
It begins, as things so often do, with a perky blond newscaster being torn limb from limb and devoured before our eyes. Okay, okay, not all films start out that way, but if you’re one of Portland-based animator Bill Plympton’s many devoted fans, then you know what I’m talking about. The man whose “Plymptoons” enlivened the very worst of MTV’s late-Eighties doldrums returns with this, his third feature-length outing, and, like The Tune and I Married a Strange Person before it, it’s a hit-or-miss affair. The story — an astronaut goes into space and ends up returning with a passel of cuddly-yet-ravenous mutants in tow — seems almost an afterthought. Mutant Aliens‘ raison d’être is first and foremost as an extension of Plympton’s bizarre and dark sense of humor. Many, many people are devoured by giant tongues, fuzzy bunnies zip around in futuristic roadsters, and true love (don’t ask) wins out in the end. As always, Plympton hand-draws every single frame himself, and if it’s not for everyone, it’s certainly a labor of love (and aliens). (CC, 3/17, 7:45pm)
This article appears in March 16 • 2001.