Planes

⭐ 6/10

Ezra loved Cars, but didn't seem to care at all about Cars 2, so why not Planes? I read a couple quick reviews and was shocked to find that this movie is completely reviled! People were really angry about it, and while I didn't love it at all I didn't think it was terrible.

Cars is excellent, and has a great premise, basically Emporer's New Groove for the arc of the main character. In this movie we have a crop duster who dreams of being a racer - cool! Also, he's afraid of heights! Great! I liked this as a setup, but the rest of the movie is pretty cookie cutter. Hits all the same beats as cars, all the same jokes (including lots of read-end humour, including vehicles ogling the tail ends of the female vehicles, which is kind of weird), even has a basically identical supporting cast. That might be where the hate came from, this is a lazy retread. Even the voice actor playing Dusty (Dane Cook!? Remember him!?) sounds a whole lot like Owen Wilson. But over a decade after its release this is just some typical kids content. I want more for my kids, but my kid loves airplanes and all things that fly, so he loved this.

On a positive note, I thought the first 15 minutes of the movie were great, meeting Dusty and him being introduced to this racing world. I thought the animation looked great too, this isn't some bargain bin Disney spin off. I would never go out of my way to recommend this, and I won't be encouraging a rewatch any time soon, but I honestly appreciate a spin off like this more than a sequel that does the exact same thing with all the same characters, like Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, Inside Out 2. I think the live action remakes are complete abominations, shameless money grabs lacking any artistic merit whatsoever, so something like this is at least a tier above that.