Cars came a little bit too late for me, that is the, uh, 2006 Disney movie I'm referring to by the way, by that point I was an teenager on the cusp of adulthood and into more adult appropriate movies like American Psycho, Secretary and Donnie Darko. I'd moved on. But there is a whole generation of people who have fond childhood memories of the Cars franchise, and if the internet is to believed they are heralded as some of the best movies of the post-modern Disney era. And then, there is Planes. The 2013 Cars spin-off that is arguably one of the most critically derided and negatively received movies in Disney's original catalogue, bested maybe only by Jungle Book 2 which perhaps might feature here one day... so for Disney Week this week, I thought we'd take a break from DCOM's and instead find out if Planes really is as bad as the critics made it out to be.
Dusty (Dane Cook) is a crop duster plane with aspirations of flying the "Wings Around the Globe" rally and of becoming a racing plane. After barely scraping through in 5th place qualifying after a rival plane is disqualified, he approaches Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach); a retired dogfighter plane and decorated war hero to become his mentor. Training goes, well, badly, at first as Dusty reveals to Skipper that he's afraid of heights... but after some mentoring and with help from his pals Chug (Brad Garrett) - a fuel truck, and Dottie (Teri Hatcher) - a forklift and mechanic, Dusty continues to improve to the point his mentor considers him ready. Arriving in New York for the first leg of Wings Around the Globe, Dusty gets to meet his fellow contestants, and parodies of national stereotypes (Ok, I particularly liked the British one...), amongst which are tournament favourite Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith), Ishani (Priyanka Chopra) an Indian racing champion, Rochelle (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) a French Canadian Racer, and El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui) a luchador / matador themed plane also in his first rally who becomes friendly with Dusty. The first leg is a sprint from New York to Iceland, and Dusty still not over his fear of heights flies the whole stretch barely above the ground, arriving in dead last... Leg 2 is Iceland to Germany; an obstacle course and during the race Bulldog (John Cleese), the aforementioned British stereotype has an accident, but is shepherded to ground by Dusty, which does nothing to help his standings and Dusty maintains his position in last place. But after a conversation with El Chu and a German Aerocar called Franz... Dusty loses his crop sprayer and is ready for Leg 3: Germany to India. A leg where all planes are confined to sub 1,000ft which works in Dusty's favour and by the end of the Leg he works his way up from last to 8th, which invokes the jealousy of Ripslinger... At the stopover in India, Dusty is advised he will need to learn to fly higher if he hopes to survive the pass at the Himalayas and he and Ishani begin to get closer when Ishani congratulates his success so far in his first rally and as the pair taking a flying visit (get it?) to the Taj Mahal, Ishani advises that Dusty can follow the railroad tracks to traverse the Himalayas but still stay flying low. Leg 4: India to Nepal and Dusty follows Ishani's advice, at one point flying through a tunnel and almost colliding with a train, but he is the first to arrive in Nepal and it's there he realises that Ishani, on instruction from Ripslinger, tried to set him up to fail and the pair fall out. Leg 5 is Nepal to China with Dusty maintaining his lead, and after landing in China, and helping El Chu to serenade Rochelle, El Chu proclaims that he is in his debt to Dusty, which I'm sure won't come up later... Leg 6 is China to Mexico a long stretch across the ocean but Dusty is barely on the path there when one of the rival planes, and one of Ripslinger's lackeys, crashes into him and breaks off his antenna, causing Dusty to get lost over the ocean. But he is rescued by US military planes who escort him to an aircraft carrier and it's onboard the carrier that Dusty learns Skipper only ever flew one mission and is not the decorated hero he thought he was... but before Dusty can question Skipper any further he has to leave the carrier before a tropical storm hits. On his way to Mexico, unable to fly above the storm because of his fear of heights Dusty ends up crashing into the ocean where he is rescued and escorted back to the airport and rendezvous with Skipper, Chug and Dottie who have travelled to Mexico to meet him. Too badly damaged from the crash the rally is over for Dusty but he learns from Skipper that his one and only mission was a total disaster, where engaging with a fleet of ships destroyed his entire squadron and almost downed him himself, with Skipper unable to bring himself to fly ever since. On the verge of giving up entirely Dusty is suddenly surprised by El Chu who donates him some new wings, and the other planes quickly follow suit with Ishani donating her propeller and making it up with Dusty. Fully rebuilt, Dusty pledges to beat Risplinger in the final leg; Leg 7 Mexico to New York, despite being in last place now, whilst Ripslinger privately declares he plans to end the rivalry "once and for all", overheard by Skipper... Making his way from last to 4th, Dusty catches up with Ripslinger and his 2 lackeys, who upon noticing Dusty behind them proceed to try and take Dusty out, but he is suddenly rescued by an airborne Skipper who drives Ripslinger away and coaches Dusty into losing the 2 others. With just Dusty, Ripslinger and Skipper left, Ripslinger takes out Skipper by damaging his tail, but surviving he urges Dusty to take him out and finish the race. Pursuing Ripslinger, Dusty is unable to catch up, but finally overcoming his fear of heights, Dusty ascends and rides the tailwinds to catch up and is just able to overtake Ripslinger literally at the finish line for a photo finish!
There was alot of things I enjoyed about this movie. Alot. I am kind of into planes and flying anyway, although I've never flown a plane... yet... so I'm a little bit biased maybe, but they got a lot of things right here. Principally the plot which I thought was structured really well, and flowed really well throughout the film, but I liked the attention to detail; how so many different types of plane were used to represent the different areas of the world that they came from, how there was quirky little touches; one of the correspondents for the news channel covering the rally was a blimp, and one was a helicopter, cows were tractors. The animation was perfectly on point, and despite most of the characters being planes they still somehow managed to humanise the characters to a degree so it didn't feel so underdeveloped. If this is Disney at their level worst then it speaks volumes about the output of their work.
As aforementioned, the plot, although maybe a little bit rushed at the beginning, flows really nicely as it tells the story of the events of the rally and with each bit there is a little bit more development that builds the story, fleshes out the characters a little bit more until it reaches it's conclusion which is perfectly how a plot should be structured. It was very formulaic - the story of an underdog rising to the top, with the tragic moment and the almost giving up moment and the overcoming a personal boundary to go on to accomplish something moment, and almost every Disney movie, more or less, follows the same formula. It's something that has come to be expected with these kind of movies, and you could have maybe done it differently, yes, but would it have accomplished anything better than Planes already accomplishes?
I wasn't initially really captivated by Dane Cook as the lead voice actor, but as the film progressed he grew on me and although he didn't really have a huge depth to work with I think he did a pretty decent job. The whole cast, really, are somewhat lesser known actors than say, the Hollywood A-list you might find in Disney movies nowadays but everybody did a pretty decent job and Roger Craig Smith in particular was pretty good as Ripslinger, able to bounce from the respectable legendary champion to the dark, and brooding jealous type quite easily.
There were a few elements of this movie that I felt were a bit of a let down. The formulaic and predictable nature of the plot being a main one and you can already pretty much figure out how the movie is going to go just by reading the synopsis. It doesn't bring anything fresh to table. And there was the odd moment of trailer bait clichés going on with some of the scenes, another trope that you get a lot with Disney movies. I am sort of on the fence with the whole cultural stereotype thing; the British plane was a wellspoken toff, the Mexican plane was a crazy luchador matador, the French Canadian plane was a pretty love interest e.t.c. but I guess that helps develop and define the characters to a degree, still a bit more interesting and extra dimension and a more thoughtful approach to that would have been appreciated.
I don't think Planes was a perfect movie as such. It follows a very clear, very heavily defined formula, and it relies heavily on stereotypes and a storyline that is a path well trodden in order to deliver it's contents, but it was certainly polished and produced to a very high standard and for it's predictable approach was still an enjoyable and entertaining movie. I would certainly watch this again, and after watching am certainly now more interested in watching the follow up and maybe even giving the rest of the Cars franchise a chance! I will need to go back and take a look at the criticism to try and understand why this movie got such a negative reception, because for me, despite being nothing fresh, despite promising nothing beyond what you might expect going in, I still felt Planes was an enjoyable, fun watch and if this represents Disney on a bad day, then it really speaks volumes about the quality of Disney's production standards as whole because I'm sure any competent studio would have been proud to have been the figureheads behind this movie. A good, solid, 3 out of 5.
