Planes (2013)

Film: Planes
Release: 2013, theatrical
Starring: Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Carlos Alazraqui
Directed by: Klay Hall
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: When a crop dusting plane qualifies for a round the world racing championship on a technicality, he does anything in his power to prove that you can do more than what you were built for

Hans' thoughts:

The Cars movies turned out to be one of Pixar's greatest commercial successes. The tale of the up and comer learning to remember the simple pleasures is cute enough, but basing it around talking cars proved once again how much little boys love cars. So why not try the same thing, but with Planes? I'm sure this isn't far off of the actual pitch that were done to make this movie happen - how they worked in the "Not actually animated by Pixar" and still got greenlit is anyones guess, though I suspect whoever Disney executive were in charge expected to make back the revenue on toy sales anyway. Okay, I cannot really be more frank than this: This film, though entertaining, is a very obvious marketing ploy by Disney to sell some toys. Just as was the case with the G.I. Joe cartoon or Transformers cartoon of the 80's, the film pretty much amounts to a very well-made toy commercial. The movie takes place in the same universe as the Cars movies, meaning all vehicles talk and have faces. If you can't look past this and watch the movie then you will not get any enjoyment out of the experience whatsoever. Let's get on with it.

That's about where the connection to the original two movies stops, this isn't a sequel to the Cars movies and our main character Dusty Crophopper is a bit different from Lightening McQueen. While yes, Planes is a racing movie just like Cars was but I'd argue this movie is actually more about racing than Cars. Dusty is a young crophopper who's tired of his lot in life, for years both him and his best friend the fuel truck Chug have been fans of the annual "Wings Across The World" race. Despite being warned that his engine wouldn't be able to handle the strain of going through such a thing, Dusty competes for the qualifications and just barely makes the cut on a technicality. To have a better chance of winning, he seeks out reluctant help in an old WWII fighter who used to train planes in the army. At this point in the movie it seems very reminiscent of Cars once again, but as I said the "arc" that McQueen and his trainer went through in their movie is barely, if at all present this time around. Dusty isn't an accomplished airplane not wanting to take advice from others and Skipper really isn't an embittered fallen star who's become disillusioned with the world. Instead we don't spend all that much time on the ground, focusing instead on making the movie about the actual race. 

The film has some funny moments, but they mostly based in "pun" territory. As an adult, I question how much you will actually do more than snicker at it but I expect kids to love it. Jokes like "Does a Giga bite?" "Not if you pet it nicely" are what we're dealing with, basically. At least we have some genuinely fun characters to go on the adventure with, I'm especially fond of the Mexican racing plane El Chupacabra, who becomes completely infatuated with one of the other contestants. To be honest, this subplot turns out to be very cute and actually written a little better than the main story. Thankfully our main character has a love interest, but it doesn't take the focus at any point in the film. While they do share a scene or two together, focus is thankfully kept on winning the race. Our main villain is not all that well written however, he's your typical "rest on his laurels" type character that becomes unnecessarily cruel to the others in a desperate attempt to win the race. I fully expected him to menacingly twirl a mustache and tie an innocent girl to some train tracks.

While not the most advanced childrens cartoon out there, some good animation, beautiful visuals and fun little characters keeps the idle viewer entertained and at the very least chuckling for the duration. It is not art or even un part with most Pixar movies. Disney has made better 3D animated films themselves before this movie and hopefully they will continue doing so in the future as well. Until then, there's a fun little movie without much consequence out there making the rounds. Trust me, there exists far worse animated films out there, if that's any sort of consolation.

Real Steel (2011)

Film: Real Steel
Release: 2011, Theatrical
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Karl Yune
Directed by: Shawn Levy
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: A former boxer and failing robot-boxing promoter is about to lose everything when he suddenly has to spend the summer with his estranged 11-year old son after the death of his mother.

Hans' thoughts:

Putting a new spin on a tried and true formula, Real Steel combines 3 well-known plot-types with some of the best CGI special effects in years. It is both an Underdog movie, with the newcomer reaching the big leagues, a family drama, with our two main characters trying to reconnect and a movie about companionship, with the boy and his robot angle, it's likeness seen before in movies such as E.T, The Iron Giant and even to some extent Studio Ghibli's Ponyo. Set in the near future of the 2020's, human boxers has long since been outsourced in favor of the potential for carnage in having machines fight each other. 

There is drama here, not that the movie ever gets particularly dark, mind you. It was definitely made with a kid and teenage demographic in mind but the roots of the drama of the story isn't exactly roses and daffodils. The drama of course, stems from the relationship between our two main characters. Hugh Jackman plays the failing boxing promoter Charlie Kenton that gets by in life by running from loan sharks and being overzealous, apparently repeating the same mistakes constantly as his downward spiral just continues. This is interrupted when he is contacted to sign over the rights to a son he barely remembers he had, his ex has just passed away and he now has to deal with the responsibility of trying to connect with his 11-year old son, a boy in whose life he's never played even a minor part. As far as child actors go, Dakota Goyo manages to get the job done without making it painfully obvious that he's not had to carry a movie to this extent before, having mostly appeared in minor and supporting roles to that point. This movie was not made for an adult audience, and thankfully so as these types of niche movies tend to rely far too much on the nature of so-called nerd demographic to try and unnecessarily "dignify" their choice of movie with it being as dark and gritty as possible, almost childishly so as a result.

The movie at heart is a fun little father-son adventure, set in a robot boxing universe. But while the main plot is simple, the execution is stellar and the audiences curiosity for the universe surrounding our main characters will make for a fun, if simple experience. There is nothing deep here, and you should not expect to be enthralled by a dramatic moment or a message. What you should expect, is fun to-the-point robot fighting action with some of the best CGI effects in the genre. Robots really take the center stage in this movie and some of the designs of these things are pretty imaginative, and while not as great a movie I would wager that they're better than those of more recent robot movie Pacific Rim. I should elaborate, while the design of our main robot is pretty basic (basically a big metal person) a few of the designs of the minor robots are pretty stellar and I highly support the decision to make every robot almost have it's own little signature, minor things like having the robot with a cowboy design raise it fists in a rhythm that would suggest shooting two revolvers into the air in true western fashion are just neat little touches to brighten up the atmosphere of the movie. Thankfully, the action scenes are also shot in a manner to try and show off the designs of the characters, meaning that unlike movies like Transformers you will never have trouble recognizing who's who in the ring. Honestly, at some points I felt that the robots really were there if only for a brief moment.

Bringing the underdog sports movie into the new millenia, Real Steel is the kind of movie you would expect to have been made in the eighties and nineties - I could probably have found myself playing with toys of these characters alongside those of Ghostbusters figures. As it is though, I consider it some of the best live action children's entertainment in recent years. I recommend it to kids and childish adults everywhere.