Escape from Planet Earth (2013)

Here's me thinking I missed the latest Snake Plissken adventure from John Carpenter, but actually I didn't miss much at all. I hadn't even heard of this film before, I merely stumbled across the poster one day and it looked quite cool, the title was the eye catcher though, love that.

Problem is the films title doesn't really sum up the films plot all too well. A couple of aliens get caught on Earth by some evil military geezer and are held captive in an Area 51 type area...oh wait it is Area 51. There, alongside other captured aliens, they are forced to build this big death ray laser gun thing to destroy planets. Why? because the evil human military leader is evil and wants to...plus the Roswell aliens killed his dad in the infamous Roswell crash. Clever huh? no not really you're right.

So as you may have already guessed this CGI animated film contains almost every cliched cheesy cornball sci-fi in-joke and visual gag you can imagine. The entire film is completely pointless in the fact that the whole thing has been done time and time again and there really is no need for this to exist. The main alien characters just look dull, completely dull and lifeless blue cliched aliens. All the alien sidekicks they meet up with are your bog standard array of yet more cliches...a slimy alien, a big strong angry alien and a cute little furry alien, all bases covered.

I guess the real crime here (lame plot and character design aside) is the really really average CGI animation. The backgrounds, skies, spacescapes and landscapes all look nice, nothing to blow your eyes from their sockets but they are nice. But in general most of the locations/settings, all the characters, the equipment on display and alien planet terrain/city all look pretty damn generic and bland. Lets just call it planet bland with lots of interstellar alien logos, yep the aliens in this have their own TV stations, sponsors, adverts etc...just like us! its all very crap.

The voice cast doesn't boost your moral put it that way, you know to be weary when Brendan Fraser gets the lead role lets be honest. The story is weak and pointless, the visuals are bright and colourful but sorely lacking quality, few laughs to be had, drab characters and rather limp action sequences. This really is a poor man's 'Monsters vs Aliens' in every sense, feels more like a glossy kids cartoon for a dreary rainy Saturday afternoon.

Considering this is all about aliens and space adventure its virtually grounded on Earth for the whole run time, not much escaping going on anywhere.

3/10