Planet 51

Planet 51 is an average childrens movie. It has both positive and negative aspects to it. The film is about a planet of green people living in their own version of 1950s America being visited by an alien in the form of an American astronaut. This premise is pretty fantastic. The crisp animation, the right choice of music, and the homage paid to other films are all terrific things. Casting Gary Oldman as the voice of the military general is a stroke of genius. But then the writing is glaringly weak. Most of the characters are not developed enough to be very interesting. The humor is not well balanced with the serious side of the story. And most of the jokes are not terribly funny. Planet 51 provides reasons to not hate it and reasons to not love it, so I ended up only sort of liking it.