For years,
I've been waiting for a movie like "Titan AE"... an animated film
with no cute talking animals, no singing, no dancing, and dammit, it's not
even really a movie for kids. Japan's been doing it for years, why can't
we? Well, "Titan AE" turns out to have none of the cute talking
animals, and no singing or dancing, but it's still pretty much a movie for
kids. It's got some mild violence, but that's it, nothing more gratuitous
than what you'd find in a "Power Rangers" movie. If that comes
off like a complaint, maybe it is. I guess I wanted something more ballsy.
Disney got ballsy with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," an animated
film that seemed like a movie for kids on the surface, but if you look deep,
you see that it's a dark movie about lust, sexual repression, religious
hypocrisy, and the sad truth about what it means to be unattractive. Still,
my hat goes off to the makers of this movie, as well as 20th Century Fox,
because releasing a straight sci-fi animated film really IS a gamble. It
just sucks that I sat there bored through most of it.
"Titan AE" combines traditional cell animation with computer animation,
and it's a bit distracting. That being said, visually, "Titan AE"
is spectacular. I especially liked the way the evil aliens looked, with
their luminescent blue armor... or at least, I THINK it's armor.
One of the things that didn't bore me was this very clever chase scene where
these orb-like trees were made of hydrogen, and were like bombs, hit one
of the trees, and you die in a fiery explosion. The good guys were being
chased all around 'em. Very cool. Unfortunately, there weren't enough scenes
like that. I dunno, I guess I just wasn't very interested in the story.
There were a lotta talented people who lent their voices to this movie.
Matt Damon (I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but his character looked
a lot like him), Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan Lane, rapper Tone
Loc, former SNLer, Jim Breuer (his character sounds a lot like his Joe Pesci
impersonation), Janeane Garofalo, Ron Perlman, and John Leguizamo (I'm not
a huge fan of his, but his voice work here is great... and completely unrecognizable).
"Titan AE" is a Don Bluth film. Don Bluth most recently directed
"Anastasia,"
and he also directed the original "All Dogs Go to Heaven," the
original "The Land Before Time," "An American Tail,"
and "The Secret of NIMH." Gary Goldman directed along with Bluth,
as he did in "Anastasia." "Titan AE" had lotsa writers,
including Ben Edlund (one of the writers for "The Tick") Randall
McCormick (he helped write "Speed 2: Cruise Control"), Hans Bauer
(helped write "Anaconda"), John August (wrote "Go"
and the upcoming movie version of "Charlie's Angels"), and Joss
Whedon (creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," co-creator of the
"Buffy" spin-off, "Angel," which is a better show, by
the way, and he wrote "Alien
Resurrection"... he also helped write "Toy Story" and
the upcoming "X-Men"
movie).
There were some good things in "Titan AE," and it LOOKED great.
The story just didn't do it for me, though. Sorry. Not my thing, I guess.