Release date:
|
August 23, 2013
|
Director:
|
Klay Hall
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Voices of Dane
Cook, Stacy Keach, Brad Garrett, Priyanka Chopra, Teri Hatcher, Julia
Louis-Dreyfuss, John Cleese
English
|
Planes is sweet. It’s also insubstantial and feels incomplete; a
film I think I might have liked better if I’d never seen Pixar’s Cars.
As Hollywood animation flicks go, this one seems to be
following a template set by Cars
without the depth and brilliance of that film. Dane Cook voices Planes’ leading man Dusty Crophopper, a
male plane whose job as a cropduster is to spray pesticides on fields. He lives
in a town that’s “off the map” (there you go – a reminder of Radiator Springs,
where Cars’ Lightning McQueen
accidentally found himself) and wants to figure out if he can be something more
than that. So he enters a prestigious international flying competition where he
comes up against the accomplished and wickedly competitive Ripslinger (Roger
Craig Smith) and his chamchas, the
delightfully propah British gentleman Bulldog (John Cleese), the stern French-Canadian
hottie Rochelle (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), her Mexican suitor El Chupacabra (Carlos
Alazraqui), the
attractive Indian lady plane Ishani (Priyanka Chopra) and other colourful
characters. The problem is, as soon as we meet the principal cast, it’s clear
where the story is headed: of course Ripslinger plays dirty, of course everyone
else is won over by Dusty’s goodness and backs him, and of course Dusty falls
for Ishani. Back in Dusty’s home town, the reclusive, retired naval warplane Skipper
Riley (Stacy Keach) who reluctantly agrees to train our hero for the race, harks
back to Cars’ elderly and bitter Doc
Hudson.
Planes’ locations are scenic, humour intermittently rears its
head in the story and the film’s palette of colours is attractive. But Hollywood
has set the bar so high with its animation films over the years, that this is a
basic minimum we demand from each of them now. So what else? In terms of
writing, beyond a point the film feels flimsy. In terms of action, sure there
are some nice aerial manoeuvres during the race scenes, but except for one suspenseful
ride through a train tunnel in the Himalayas and another wonderful sequence in
which Dusty crashes into the waves in a furious Pacific Ocean, there’s nothing
particularly qualified to take our collective breaths away.
For us here in India, Priyanka’s name in the credits is of
particular interest. It’s nice then to see that Ishani is a crucial character
in Planes and – this is particularly
significant – the film has neither caricatured her nor exoticised her as an
Indian the way some American films and teleserials still do. The romance
between Dusty and Ishani is awww-inducing and one of the film’s high points.
Priyanka purrs her way through the role, her voice oozing so much sexiness,
that when Dusty gapes at her retreating back gasping the words “nice propeller!”
you know exactly what he’s getting at. There’s also a charming scene in which Ishani
takes him on an aerial survey of India, over the Himalayas and the Taj Mahal, when
A.R. Rahman’s Tere bina besuwadi ratiyaa from the film Guru plays in
the background. Truly lovely! Sadly, considering that she provides a very
important plot point in the film, their relationship is rounded off in a hurried
and unsatisfactory fashion towards the end. Wonder if the sequel will take it
forward.
Making her Hollywood debut here, Priyanka finds herself in
the midst of a star-studded voice cast. The numero uno Hollywood animation film
on that front has got to be Kung Fu Panda
2 – I mean, imagine the glare of a film featuring the voices of Dustin
Hoffman and Angelina Jolie, Jack
Black, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh and Jean-Claude Van
Damme among others! – but Planes doesn’t do too badly on the front either. Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus delivers
a neat French accent without going over the top, and Desperate Housewives’ Terri Hatcher is cute as a button playing
Dusty’s cynical friend Dottie. The pick of the lot though is Brad Garrett as Dusty’s
fuel truck buddy Chug. Garrett, of course, is familiar to Indian television
viewers as Ray’s gigantic brother in Everybody
Loves Raymond.
There you have it then… Planes has its moments that are worth a single viewing, but it’s
also decidedly unmemorable. John Lasseter who co-wrote this film, seems not to
have been able to shrug off the memory of Cars 1&2, both of which he directed (well, actually he shared direction
credits on sequel) and co-wrote. So yeah, Dusty Crophopper is a nice guy and
Dane Cook does a fair job of voicing him, but it’s got to be said that there’s
no one quite like Owen Wilson and his blazing red Lightning McQueen!
Rating (out of five): **3/4
CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
MPAA Rating (US):
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92 minutes
PG (for some mild action and rude humour)
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Release date in the US:
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August 9, 2013
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Poster of Ishani courtesy: Disney UTV
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