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It’s the year 3028 and an alien race, called the Drej, made up of pure energy, attack the Earth and destroy it because they fear we may suck up all their energy. What seems to be a handful of humans escape as well as the prestigious Titan Project, a giant ball of a spaceship that must be hidden from the Drej, due to the crucial information contained within. The creator of the Titan has a son named Cale (voiced by Matt Damon) who is left behind by his father for the greater good of the universe and now spends his time working on anonymous colonies in space. What kind of life anyone leads on these colonies besides working and eating is sacrificed for the greater good of the film’s running time. Cale is eventually tracked down by Korso (Bill Pullman) who worked with his father on the Titan. Korso shows Cale how to work his father’s ring to imprint a map to the Titan on his flesh, entrusting him with a mission that literally puts the fate of the universe on his hands. Korso’s companions includes the beautiful purple-streaked hair Akima (Drew Barrymore), a Peter Lorre-like amphibian-like creature named Gune (John Leguizamo) and another pair of wisecrackers (Nathan Lane and Janeane Garofalo), one who looks like the Big Bad Wolf and the other like a kangaroo after a mutant experiment gone wrong. This is mankind’s last chance to find the Titan (ahead of the Drej) and save their species.

The people at Fox seem to have reached into their science fiction catalog of movies to piece together their latest effort. The alien leader looks right out of Independence Day with their mothership possessing the exact same super weapon (a single giant laser beam capable of taking out large structures – in this case the Earth). A group of “space angels” that lead Cale on his maiden voyage as a pilot have the same color, structure and movement as the underwater creatures in The Abyss. The sequence where the Drej attack Cale and Akima’s ship recalls the turret shooting scene in the original Star Wars. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they dipped outside the Fox catalog as well to connect the dots. A cluster of ice crystals looks like Superman’s escape pod from Krypton. An invention’s ability to create a living, breathing planet out of nothing is directly out of Star Trek II (perhaps the movie should have been called Genesis A.E.). And the map imprint on Cale’s hand clearly reminded me of the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I kept expecting to hear the phrase, “the Drej are digging in the wrong place.” My God, who directed this film? Don Bluth or Puff Daddy?

Of course, none of this would be that big a deal if the film was executed with the excitement and sense of wonder one comes to expect with both science fiction tales and animation. And it’s not without its positives. The opening attack and evacuation of Earth is a stimulating start. And, undeniably, the hide-and-seek chase through the collapsing ice of Tigrin looks and sounds absolutely amazing. It was the first time since the destruction of Earth that I sat up in my seat. Unfortunately that sequence could have been even better if I cared a little more about the characters and their mission. And part of that is because the story isn’t set up very well. How long did the humans know the Drej were planning an attack? How many of us actually survived? This is the first science fiction story I can remember where the aliens feared the humans for being TOO intelligent. The Body Snatchers thought we were too emotional. Klaatu and Gort thought we were too reckless with our nuclear weapons. And who can forget the alien leaders of Plan 9 accusing us of our “stupid minds. Stupid. STUPID!!!” So, if the Drej so fear the humans, why aren’t they off on a manhunt of the universe picking off the survivors for the 15 years after they blew up the planet? This woeful lack of details cheats the audience into feeling zero suspense as the Drej occasionally show up to shoot a couple lasers and then blow up. This is a film that makes Independence Day look like high art.

Titan A.E. is being hailed as one of the leaders in hailing in the next evolution of animation. Don’t be fooled. Many images could have pulled directly from Space Ace (one of many video games using animation created in the 80s by none other than Don Bluth). And I don’t usually care for my “adult-oriented” sci-fi animation to have wacky sidekick characters that should have no business outside of a Disney project. Garofalo’s character is an odd looking one with legs so long, that it walks like it spent all its free time in a John Holmes movie. (In all honestly I actually thought the name of the character through the whole movie was Stiff. Turns out it was Stith.)

Bluth (who basically gave Disney the finger and left to make his own projects) has been trying for years to carve out his own niche in the animation game and he’s had a spotty track record ranking from the good (Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, Anastasia) to the mediocre (Rock-A-Doodle, Thumbelina, The Pebble and the Penguin). His Titan A.E. is certainly ambitious but falls way short in too many areas to be considered for classic status. Ironically enough, I believe this to be a film that actually would have benefited from not being animated at all. With all the advancements in computer visual effects these days, there is little-to-nothing that couldn’t have been created by the team at ILM. And I’ve been one of the great supporters for animated projects year-by-year. From the Pixar films to Japanese creations like Princess Mononoke to the upcoming stop-motion extravaganza that is Chicken Run, animated films have continued to delight and please me time-and-time again.

I had high hopes for Titan A.E. because when you can create a visual feast like last year’s Phantom Menace, the sky’s the limit for creating the kind of movement and action and sights not feasible for the live-action world. Titan A.E. doesn’t, instead throwing together cobbled pieces from better movies in hopes of finding a story, and creating action that is more nonchalant than mind-blowing. Even the film’s soundtrack is terrible, using rock songs (like in Heavy Metal) to punctuate the action instead of an instrumental score that only increases our sense of wonder (or danger). This is yet another film where we know the music, but the lyrics stink.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=801&reviewer=198
originally posted: 06/19/00 10:48:27
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