TITAN A.E (2000)
Grade: C+
Director: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, Art Vitello
Screenplay: Hans Bauer, Randall McCormick, Ben Edlund, John August, Joss Whedon
Starring (Voices): Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan Lane, Tone Loc, Jim Breuer, John Leguizamo, Janeane Garofalo, Ron Perlman, Alex D. Linz
TITAN A.E is like a Saturday Morning Cartoon version of STAR WARS. I didn't really care for it, but then I didn't like STAR WARS either. That film, for all its ingenious crossover marketing coups, is one helluva hollow space opera, a movie that managed to single handedly turn one of the most fascinating film genre's into bargain matinee trash all while audiences and critics cheered on. The effects of STAR WARS are still felt today, seen in lame brained space westerns of recent years like BATTLEFIELD EARTH, LOST IN SPACE, WING COMMANDER and SUPERNOVA. I loathe STAR WARS for what it did to science fiction. And TITAN A.E proudly carries on its tradition. Twenty years later, after the cinematic death of intelligent science fiction, TITAN A.E comes at us with everything that made STAR WARS crap (lame comic relief, horrible dialogue, non-existent characters) and its few strengths (terrific visuals) as well.
Don Bluth's (THE SECRET OF NIMH, AN AMERICAN TAIL) production replaces the typical gee-whiz Mark Hamil kid-hero with a more modern, cynical Luke Skywalker figure, Cale, voiced with wry Will Hunting sarcasm by Matt Damon whose affect rarely reveals anything beyond vague annoyance. He's as equally bland as Skywalker but in a wry self-aware DAWSON'S CREEK sort of way. He's the wiseacre hero for the late 90's\early millennium, all those "gosh, golly geeisms" replaced with "Whatevers".
As the film opens we meet Cale as a young mop topped child who's forced to flee the earth with his well-built father (who might have walked in from a GI JOE cartoon). It's actually quite a scene- a near classic moment as the peace of a barren earth is rapidly interrupted by monstrous, bug-like space ships blasting away at everything in sight. Cale and his father are divided, the mop topped one escaping in a separate ship that flys past earth just as our beloved planet explodes into a glitter of galvanic rock. It's exciting and a bit unsettling. For just a moment I was ten years old again, re-living the thrills of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (the only truly great film in the STAR WARS quartet, one that melds substance with excitement in a way the original didn't even attempt) and creating massive space operas of my own with GI JOE and TRANSFORMER action figures. This could be it, I thought. This could finally be that summer movie I'd been pinning for. I smiled ear to ear, laid back, then to my extreme dismay, some annoying Jar-Jar esque comic relief figures arrive, which served to immediately shake me from my state of child like wonder back into the state of nitpicky movie critic.
It's years after the prologue and Cale is now drawn to look like a BACKSTREET BOY. He's a laborer drilling away at space rocks as the camera hyperbolically spins to and fro while rock music blares. Yes this is one of those. Our hero is approached by a gruff soldier (voiced by Bill Pullman, doing his best Tommy Lee Jones), who informs him that the location of the TITAN, a spaceship that his father engineered, is etched in Cale's DNA. Cale is interested enough to join the captain's ship crew and aid in the search of this mythical craft. Aboard the ship we meet the R2D2 and C3PO stand ins; a Kangaroo like creature with a pig-like snout voiced with added cynicism by sarcasm personified, Janeane Garofalo, and a tortoise-like creature, Gune (voiced by John Leguizamo), who like Jar-Jar has the temerity to refer to himself in third person. Meanwhile Cale falls for the only other human shipmate (what, you got somethin' against inter species dating, Cale?), Akima (an Aeon Flux look-alike voiced with valley girlish apathy by Drew Barrymore), who immediately dislikes Cale which cues us to believe that by the end, they'll be smooching arm in arm.
The story is largely irrelevant, as the movie seems to spend the brunt of its energy on creating eye-popping visuals, nearly all of which are suitably enthralling. The most effective being a blood-pumping chase through the Ice Rings of Tigran, a locale made up entirely of large, reflective ice crystals that shatter with the slightest tap.
For science fiction purists (the kind who read L. Ron Hubbard like it's the bible or something) TITAN A.E may be a bit too unrelenting in its anime meets Playstation visuals set to constant Alterna rock; it's almost like an advanced, scripted version of those psychedelic 60's film reels that counterculture rebels goggled at while passing joints. The various directors' certainly go the distance visually; their attempts to mix 3-D computer animation effects with the traditional 2-D animated drawings is near-seamless.
Despite the inventive eye candy, I began to desire a bit more substance with my FX demo, but really, what did I expect from a cartoon? TITAN A.E is about on par with Don Bluth's other workmanlike animated attempts to usurp Disney. It has some unexpected moments like a bit wherein our heroes attempt to foil a big, dumb looking guard who actually turns out to be quite intelligent. But then it has far too many scenes like the one where Cale and Akima fix a gigantic run down space craft during a montage that makes it look about as easy as jump starting a Mustang. Or the one where the lead baddie yells to his minions (while in the midst of battle),"Destroy the ice shield that protects the Titan". Oh, that ice shield. To paraphrase former NEW YORK magazine film critic John Simon, "TITAN A.E will do very nicely for those lucky enough to be childish or unlucky enough never to have grown up". I'm sure Mr.Lucas is very pleased.
http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 Reeling (Ron Small)
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