The chances of finding alien life somewhere in the universe that’s biologically comparable to humans is relatively slim. The chances that they would be living an idealistic, Leave it Beaver-style 50s existence is even less likely. But the chance that on top of it all they would miraculously speak a language that’s exactly like English is about as scientifically plausible as losing weight by eating cake. However, these are adult thoughts, and Planet 51 is clearly a kids’ movie. But it’s one of those kids’ movies with a lot of in-jokes and references MEANT to appease the parents in the crowd. So if you’ll pardon the pun, Planet 51 gives you the best of both worlds - for the adults there’s a dog that looks like a xenomorph from Alien, and for the kids there’s a robot that tinkles itself.

For the most part, Planet 51 is treated, fun and kind of silly little role-reversal where NASA astronaut Chuck Baker (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) is the alien invader. The suburbanite populace OF PLANET 51 run for the hills when his Lander arrives, with the more paranoid inhabitantstaking a dim view of the visitor thanks to a steady diet of corny, sci-fi B-movies about invaders with death rays and mind-control powers. As an over-anxious military mobilizes against what they believe to be the human (or alien to them) menace, soldiers identified as “zombies” are quickly quarantined and lobotomized by the resident mad scientist. Of course this being a kids’ movie, the complete removal of one’s brain from their skull makes you stereotypically British rather than dead.

Yes, science is not Planet 51’s strong suit, but neither does it escape the rather shallow premise. I kept waiting for an explanation why their world so closely resembled our past. It reminded me of those old episodes of Star Trek where they would beam down to an alien planet and find it full of 30s gangsters because a previous expedition left a book on that subject behind. I also kept thinking that there might be some kind of allegory or metaphor to explain Planet 51’s 1950s Americana, but those are two rather big words given the immature nature of the script. Immaturity though is relative because even the kids in the audience weren’t laughing where they were supposed to at all the various bits of slap-stick and suggestively crude humour.

There’s a blandness in Planet 51 that crosses homage and parody, and takes the audience to a place that’s just stale, mostly because it’s the type of movie you’ve seen one too many times. For instance, Chuck has a robot sidekick called Rover, which looks like a webcam on wheels, and acts like a dog. Get it? It’s called Rover, which is a dog’s name, but it’s like one of those probes we sent to Mars that were called rovers. Clever. Not to mention the confusing mish-mash of eras. There’s a long-haired hippie minstrel protestor that constantly sings songs about how the aliens are peaceful. Now we all enjoy seeing hippies get beat up by The Man, or in this case military, but if you know anything about counterculture, then the aforementioned hippie alien should have been a beatnik. Beatniks were 50s, hippies were 60s. But for whatever reason hippies can be mined for more comedic value than beatniks, and lame Dylan-like folk songs of fair treatment for extraterrestrials is more melodic than hearing it as beat poetry.

If there’s a saving grace to this film, it’s that Planet 51 is very well produced. The animation looks great and is about as technologically sophisticated as anything else I’ve seen from the major studios this year considering it was independently produced. I have to admit that I did laugh at my share of the gags in the film, but thinking back, I believe that most of the time I was the only one. And as I think back about the movie. I can’t help but reconsider those funny bits as an indication not that the film has good jokes, but rather it just catches you enough to make those jokes passable on the first viewing. It’s a visual and auditory assault like the latter films featuring Dreamworks Shrek, but there’s nothing resembling the poetry and soul of even the least of the Pixar films. Planet 51 was an interesting idea, just badly executed.