Mad Times

Titan A. E.

Last night I watched the DVD of Titan A. E. I tried to talk Becky into watching it with me, but even with the voices of Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Jeneane Garofalo, and Nathan Lane, I was unsuccessful. "It's more space stuff", she says.

I'd seen it before on video, but it looks really great on DVD. This was the second animated feature from Fox Animation Studios after their extremely Disney-esque Anastasia. The basic story is that scary aliens come and blow up the Earth relegating humans to oppressed minority status in the universe. Their only hope is recovering the Titan project spaceship which escaped the destruction of Earth. Unfortunately, the only way to find it is with a map belonging (unbeknownst to him) to the son of its creator. Yeah, it's hip deep in sci-fi cliche (the Titan project in particular ends up being identical to the Genesis device in Star Trek's The Wrath of Khan), but there's a reason why all that stuff is cliche: it makes a good story. I remembered the movie as being like a bunch of animation set pieces loosely glued together with a glaze of plot, but it hangs together better than I remembered. The credits indicate that various passages were developed by different animation groups, so that may be what I was remembering. The soundtrack adds a lot with its punchy rock sound, but the dorky original score portions kept pulling me out of the movie.

The DVD has a director's commentary that I didn't watch, an interesting behind the scenes feature, a music video for the extremely dippy feature song "Over My Head" (this song has just _five_ words) by Lit, four deleted scenes, and trailers. All the usual stuff, basically. I got it from the library to see if I should add it to the collection, and I think I'll keep an eye out for a cheap copy.

Verdict: 2-1/2 stars (out of 4) for a fun rock music space epic with engaging voice talent and extreme animation eye candy.