My daughter loved the trailer for Planes. She could watch it over and over again. We thought about taking her to the theater to see it, but decided she wasn’t ready for the big show yet. As soon as it was available on bluray I reserved it at my local Redbox kiosk.
Like Cars before it, Planes looks great. The animation of the sleek aerodynamic metal looks cool. Planes also has some cool point-of-view flying sequences. The whole experience was improved by the fact that we watched it on a friend’s 120" projection screen. The movie looked awesome. But there is very little to Planes beyond the aesthetic.
Planes feels like they recycled most of the story from Cars. The whole reason it exists is to create a whole other set of toys that children will want to buy. The storyline of the film is harmless… and a little bland. Dane Cook does nothing to improve the film. Cars was a better effort as far as the story goes, and Cars had better characters, but both movies left me feeling similarly underwhelmed and unmoved. I would say that sentient vehicles were unable to elicit emotion from me, but the adorable robot WALL-E was able to do the trick.
Children who loved Cars will probably love Planes. Dusty Crophopper will replace Lightning McQueen on the toy shelf and Disney will rake in the dough.