Escape From Planet Earth - C

Rated PG, 95 minutes

Mildly entertaining but mediocre, ho hum "Escape from Planet Earth"

"Escape from Planet Earth" is the latest animated film for the kiddos and the Weinstein's excursion into animation. While colorful and modestly humorous, it's a decent but ho hum effort that could seemingly be done by Pixar in their sleep. On planet Baab where admired astronaut Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) is a national hero to the blue alien population. Scorch is a hero thanks largely to his nerdy brother, Gary (Rob Corddry), head of mission control. When the planet wants to send Scorch on a very dangerous mission, Scorch rejects Gary's warnings not to and bounds off anyway. But when Scorch finds himself caught in a fiendish trap set by the evil Shanker (William Shatner) it's up to scrawny, risk-adverse Gary to do the real rescuing. A mediocre effort at best, "Escape from Planet Earth" has some decent messages about family, friendship and the over commercialization of any society (even on another planet). Shatner and Fraser hams things up as the main protagonist and the villain respectably, though it's not clear why such talent as Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Ricky Gervais and Sofia Vergara would want to be wasted, though Gervais does get a few good lines as the HAL-like computer who does most of the work. The Weinstein's foray into animation is evident that they too want to take over the cinematic planet of sorts, but it's also evident they have a long way to go in becoming anywhere near the quality of Disney/Pixar, whose "WALLE" still ranks as a classic. Even at 90 some odd minutes this seems too long, but it's mildly amusing enough and a small diversion for the much younger set, who'll get the most of out of this unmemorable animated effort.

Wes's Grade: C