Titan A.E. (2000)

2.5 out of 4

Starring: voices of Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, John Leguizamo, Janeane Garofalo, Nathan Lane

Directors: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman

Time: 94 mins

Several film studios have been trying to muscle in on Disney's animation stronghold over the past five years or so, hoping to cash in on an increasingly lucrative sector. Dreamworks, Warner Bros, and Fox have set up animation divisions charged with the task of challenging the traditional Disney powerhouses (with grosses in excess of US$300m for The Lion King and US$240m for Toy Story 2 in North America alone, not to mention the regular US$100m receipts for the annual Disney summer entry, it's not hard to understand why). Their efforts have, by and large, been mediocre. Though Dreamworks scored a hit with 1998's The Prince Of Egypt, and Fox also tasted mild success with 1997's Anastasia, efforts like Warner's Quest for Camelot and The King and I have bombed at the box office. Now comes Titan A.E., the film whose poor performance literally shut down Fox's animation studio. It's a visually exciting mesh of futuristic sci-fi, hard rock music, traditional 2-D animation and computer generated 3-D imagery, but it doesn't quite gel. The action sequences are impressive, but the segments in between unfortunately don't have the same pep.

Set in the far future, Titan A.E. draws its inspiration from sources like Star Wars, Alien, and Independence Day (incidentally, all movies released by Fox). Cale (Matt Damon) is a young boy who witnesses the destruction of Earth when the alien Drej suddenly launch an invasion. Part of a handful of humans who escaped, Cale now works in drifter colonies tending to space junk. When a spaceship piloted by humans Korso (Bill Pullman) and Akima (Drew Barrymore) seeks him out, Cale is plunged into a race with the Drej to find the Titan Project, a top-secret device that may hold the key to the survival of the human species.

Visually, Titan A.E. is a marvel. The numerous action sequences are a kaleidoscope of colour and imagination, set in landscapes ranging from swamps with hydrogen trees (that explode on contact) to a dangerous field of gigantic floating ice particles. The sound effects are also wondrous, with some deep bass that you're guaranteed to feel. The aliens, however, don't show the same creativity. They seem made of parts cobbled from every bad alien species ever depicted on film. No matter, though - they're not shown very often. The non-action scenes also suffer from drabness, as if the scriptwriters weren't quite sure how to propel the narrative forward. Luckily, these scenes don't last too long before we're plunged into another action portion. There's also supposed to be a romance, but there wasn't much spark, even between hand-drawn characters.

Worse still are the regular blasts of heavy rock music that infiltrate the film every now and then. This might lend a bit of a hard-edged, cyberpunkish feel to the movie, but I still think the music was out of place. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to appeal to a more teenaged audience, but since teenagers are usually conditioned to think of animated features ("A cartoon? Ewgh!") as uncool, I don't know if that was the right marketing strategy for this film. In any case, I would have preferred a more epic score.

The all-star cast recruited to voice the characters are well-integrated into the film, so much so that I only recognised Matt Damon's voice (and that's because I knew he was Cale). I only found out who the other characters were later on when I looked at the credits. Of special note is John Leguizamo's voice for an alien frog-like creature named Gune, which is eerily like Frank Oz's work for Yoda in the Star Wars series (and Gune looks like Yoda, too!).

As directed by former Disney animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (who were behind Anastasia, An American Tail, and others), Titan A.E. is a visual and aural feast, with the many stunning action scenes allowing for a certain degree of rewatchability. It's a pity the story doesn't hold up as well. Though it's not as bad as the poor box office suggested, I don't think its unusual mix of rock music and traditional animation appealed to a lot of people, and that's probably where it failed to live up to expectations.

(c) Joe Wong (4 January 2001)