Planet 51 — Now that Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson have muddied the kiddie pool with their indie sensibilities, parents seeking more conventional family fare need look no further than Planet 51. There’s absolutely nothing challenging about this animated action-comedy, which plays to the cheap seats rather than exploring its admittedly clever premise to the fullest.

Essentially, Planet 51 is E.T. in reverse: kid befriends alien who has crash-landed on his planet, hides him from the authorities, and tries to help him return home. In this case, however, the alien is Captain Charles T. Baker (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), an astronaut sent on an exploratory mission from our own planet Earth. The world he finds is populated by little green men, including planetarium guide Lem (Justin Long), his buddy Skiff (Seann William Scott), and the girl of Lem’s dreams, Neera (Jessica Biel). While these teens quickly determine that Chuck means them no harm — as it turns out, they all speak the same language, so this isn’t hard to figure — the same can’t be said for the authorities, including General Grawl (Gary Oldman) and Professor Kipple (John Cleese), who have designs on capturing the captain and extracting his brain.

What follows is an escalating series of slapstick chase scenes that quickly reveal the poverty of imagination first-time directors Jorge Blanco and Javier Abad and screenwriter Joe Stillman (Shrek 1 and 2) have brought to the proceedings. The visuals are straight out of the “Bob’s Big Boy” style of retro-futurism, and although that’s appropriate to the setting — the planet appears to be stuck in its own Happy Days era — it’s a design that’s become very familiar in recent sci-fi animation. (See Astro Boy and Meet the Robinsons.) The celebrity voice fad has probably run its course, too; Cleese and Oldman know what they’re doing, but what’s the point in using physical specimens like Biel and the artist formerly known as The Rock for their indistinct pipes? Planet 51 promises an out-of-this-world experience, but it never really achieves liftoff.



The Twilight Saga: New Moon — As far as we know, there is no truth to the rumor that Entertainment Weekly is changing its name to Twilight Weekly… although at this point, it might as well. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson return for the second installment in the “OMG, my boyfriend’s a vampire! No, he’s a werewolf!” series.



The Blind Side — Michael Lewis’s nonfiction book about the evolution of offensive strategy in football gets the Hollywood treatment, somehow becoming Sandra Bullock’s bid for Oscar glory in the process. Bullock stars as a spunky Southern belle who takes in a homeless African-American teen (Quinton Aaron) and helps transform him into a first-round NFL pick.



Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans — Here’s yet a sixth reason Werner Herzog is more badass than Chuck Norris: he’s managed to transform his “non-remake” of Abel Ferrera’s pulp classic about an out-of-control cop from every film blogger’s punching bag (guilty as charged) into one of the most anticipated movies of the year.

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