Before any of you say anything this isn´t a Kids movie, whaddya mean cos its a cartoon it is, ah OK shan´t grumble any more - but its not just for kids!, OK peeps I admit it - I cashed in some rewards I had coming from pay-for-writing-websites to buy the DVD of Titan AE from Amazon, it arrived yesterday morning and the movies actually not bad!
Now then you see, why should I be so anxious to watch a cartoon, well I am a big kid after all, but mainly because of the talk of how well animated this movie was thanks to the amount of CGI used in making it, and to watch the movie you can see theres a lot of work been done here, but I digress a quick look into what the movies about shall we? I think we shall.
Starting in the year 3028 Earth is being attacked by an evil alien race named the Drej and guess what - the Drej are winning (well it wouldn´t be a decent movie if we were winning straight from the start now would it?), anyway we cut to a father and his son rushing to leave the planet before the Drej explode it, next thing we know they´re going their seperate ways and we see the planet explode, In a very Independence Day-style.
Jump 15 years to the future and we meet Cale who was that young boy, hes headstrong now and to be honest a bit of a jerk, hes working for an alien company now and the work conditions aren´t great, just when it seems life can´t get any worse Cale gets accosted by 2 aliens hoping to make him their next meal, out of nowhere Cale receives help from an unknown man, who claims to have known Cale´s father. Quick chat with this man reveals his name as Korso and talks of a ship called Titan that could save whats left of the Human race from the Drej, now we´ve got a mission but also you lot have the jist of where the storyline is going so theres going to be no more storytelling from me.
Now then - this is a cartoon, it doesn´t have a proper cast-list does it? we have voice-overs but no actors as such so lets have a looksie at some of the characters (along with which big name star voiced the character as well - if there was a big-name star).
We´ve already met Cale who was voiced by Matt Damon so hes not going to get much of a write-up, as I said hes headstrong but hes also passionate about anything he sets his mind to and hey the guy even reminds me a little bit of yours truly if truth be known, so of course hes just the greatest character ever made!
Then theres Korso who tries to be a father-figure for Cale, this one voiced by Bill Pullman (of Independence Day fame), this ones been trying to find the Titan for a long time si is as you would expect anxious to get this mission over with, but hes also a little quiet for a leader character and we learn more about him a little later into the film, but to tell you what would spoil the story so lets just leave it at quiet eh?
Now then - new character time, Akima voiced by Drew Barrymore shes the only main female character so guess what peeps - thats right, shes the love interest, as with all action-style movies, shes a fighter and as independent as any character could get - guess what though, shes a good character, adding another dimension to the movie and making it possible for the movie to effortlessly shift from one storyline to another.
Then theres Stith, shes an alien so doesn’t count as a possible love-interest which is further endorsed by the fact that Janeane Garoffolo provides the voice, this is your resident weapons expert, and she likes nothing better than exploding things, the weakest character in the storyline it has to be said, but still a strong enough character to keep the movie going.
Gune voiced by John Leguizamo provides most of the humour in the movie - hes the diminutive alien inventor who no matter how daft he seems is always right, lots of comedy moments best one has to be the quote ’’whos your daddy, Gunes your daddy!’’ whilst attacking the Drej, this guy is what the movie is all about, its all good fun and he is one of the best characters I’ve seen in a long time! (although not as good as Cale)
Theres the main characters for you, nice aren’t they, and the storylines not that bad either - it goes along at a decent pace and theres never any time when you sit back wondering why something happened, every part has a meaning to the end story so this makes this film something that I personally found very easy to sit back and watch.
There is a bit of a soundtrack main song is ’I’m in over my head’ by the little known American Pop-Rock quartet Lit and a sampling of ’With arms wide open’ by Creed, with this being an action (yes people action not kids) movie these are the sort of songs you’d expect and theres always something going on on screen that requires a bit of background music so its never forced and always seems relevant to whats happening on screen.
But how can I analyze the location of the movie when there obviously aren’t any? Easy I’m not going to....... see instead what about the work thats obviously gone into the animation of the cartoon, there are scenes that are simply stunning to watch and obviously must have taken a lot of man-hours to produce, so credit has to be given to everyone behind the movie and even though the box-office earnings didn’t make as much as expected, I personally hope that anybody considering making a cartoon doesn’t get too disheartened by it all.
So there you go - its a cartoon and I like it, I like it a lot, I may be the only one on this planet who does but then thats everybody elses loss not mine, but we really ought to consider renaming Earth ’Bob’ you know