Titan A.E. Review
by Shannon Patrick Sullivan (shannon AT morgan DOT ucs DOT mun DOT ca)July 1st, 2000
TITAN A.E. (2000) / ** 1/2
Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Screenplay by Ben Edlund, John August and Joss Whedon, from a story by Randall McCromick and Hans Bauer. Starring Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated PG by the MFCB. Reviewed on June 30th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Today's recipe: Two cups "Star Wars". Mix one pound "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan". Add generous helpings of "Heavy Metal". Bake for about a hundred minutes, garnish liberally with computer animation, and voila! One "Titan A.E.", ready for theatres.
I wanted to really enjoy "Titan A.E.". Hell, I wanted to be blown away by it. I've always loved science-fiction as a genre, but it's one that's proved notoriously difficult to get right. For every "Star Wars" there's a hundred films like "Screamers". Now comes Fox Family Films' latest foray into the world of animation, rather surprisingly the first wide-release animated sci-fi film in quite a while. Let me be clear: "Titan A.E." is a lot of fun, and certainly a visual spectacle. But oh, it could have been so much more.
The setting is the thirty-first century -- although except for the level of technology, the thirty-first century looks an awful lot like the twenty-first. As the film opens, Earth is destroyed by the Drej, energy creatures who want to eradicate humanity "because of what we might become". A scientist, Sam Tucker (Ron Perlman), has created the "Titan", a ship which promises to be humanity's last hope for salvation. Sam and the "Titan" barely escape the planet in time, but in the process he and his young son, Cale, are separated.
Fifteen years later, humanity has been scattered across the stars, and is slowly dying out. Then Cale -- now an embittered maintenance worker -- is visited by Korso (Bill Pullman), an old friend of his father's who saves him from an attack by the Drej. It turns out that a ring Sam gave Cale before they left Earth holds a map to the long-lost "Titan". A reluctant Cale joins Korso and his crew on board the "Valkyrie" to track down the "Titan" and save mankind before the Drej catch up.
Visually, "Titan A.E." is dazzling. There are some sequences which literally take your breath away, like Cale piloting the "Valkyrie" through what look to be star-birthing nebulae, with phantom-like creatures called wake angels drifting behind. And the ice rings in which much of the final half hour of the movie is set are awe-inspiring -- giant crystal structures which are at once beautiful and deadly. These are settings which would have been impossible to create using conventional animation. While they may be somewhat gratuitous (the wake angel scene in particular feels like the animators pretty much just showing off, since the entire story grinds to a halt for five minutes to accommodate it), I really didn't care, because they were that incredible to watch. It's for moments like these that I watch new releases in the theatre rather than on video; the small screen could never do them justice.
One of the more unusual decisions in the movie is to use three-dimensional computer animation for the scenery but two-dimensional hand-drawn animation for the characters. This looked awkward to me in the trailers, but ultimately I have to conclude that it works, and the melding of the two is seamless enough to dismiss any thought of incongruity. Indeed, given that computer animation of people for the most part still looks ugly and ungainly, I'm pleased by the choice.
But apart from the visuals, it's hard to find much to boast about in "Titan A.E.". The story is hopelessly derivative -- the rebel element is similar to "Star Wars", the nature of the "Titan" itself is an almost direct lift from the second "Star Trek" movie, and Cale is an echo of characters from across the genre, Luke Skywalker to Paul Atreides. Even the choice of rock music for the soundtrack is old hat, recalling "Heavy Metal" -- especially since many of the tunes curiously sound like they originate from the early Eighties.
The climax is particularly guilty of being cliched and predictable (with the exception of one delightful surprise), going through the motions as though written by a machine. And the way the Drej are finally defeated is so obvious and telegraphed that it raises the question of why nobody else figured it out fifteen years earlier.
What makes it all particularly disappointing is that the scriptwriters assembled here are a top-notch bunch. Ben Edlund created the wonderful "The Tick" comic and cartoon. John August wrote last year's well-received "Go". Joss Whedon is the mastermind behind "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", the best thing on television today. Perhaps it's not all their fault -- they were working from a story by Hans Bauer and Randall McCormick, whose biggest claims to fame are "Anaconda" and "Speed 2", respectively. And there are some lovely touches in "Titan A.E." indicative of the quality of the three writers. The encounter with the intelligent guard (who sees right through our heroes' attempts to break into a slave pen in a great deconstruction of a genre staple) and the aforementioned climactic surprise are a tantalising hint of what might have been.
But Edlund, August and Whedon cannot be held totally blameless, because if nothing else they have produced a script with virtually no recognisable characters. Cale, for example, claims to be deeply affected by his father's abandonment, but this never manifests itself as anything more than mild annoyance -- it's mostly just paid lip service, in a classic case of telling, not showing. Consequently, Cale comes across as just another cookie-cutter hero, and his romance with the similarly bland Akima (Drew Barrymore, miscast as a "drifter colony bum") is contrived and poorly-developed. Damon does little to rise above the level of the material.
Amongst the supporting cast, classy performers like Janeane Garofalo and Nathan Lane are wasted in roles that give them little opportunity to strut their stuff. Only John Leguizamo is exceptional, as a bizarre turtle-like scientist. Also very effective are the visually fearsome, seemingly indomitable Drej, who make great villains for much of the film. But in the end, the Drej are much like "Titan A.E." itself -- enjoyable, great-looking, but pretty insubstantial.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan.
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_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | [email protected] | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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