Planet 51 (2009)

Planet 51 – Century 20 @ Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, CA

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The trailer sets up the idea of an astronaut on a routine mission to a supposedly barren planet only to discover the planet is fully inhabited. But it gets better than that – the planet’s civilization has a parallel timeline to Earth but it’s about 60 years behind us (and with various technological differences like hover technology) – so they’re at the peak of the 50’s, listening to rock and roll and watching drive-in movies about – an alien invasion by the humaniacs. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

[As far as I could see,] The vocal cast was unlisted at the end of the film (an interesting choice), but it’s quite an all-star cast: Dwayne Johnson (who doesn’t sound like himself at all, making him an even more versatile actor than before) as wayward astronaut Chuck Baker, Justin Long as the “alien” Lem who helps Chuck, Seann William Scott as this paranoid conspiracy theorist who works at the local comic book store, Jessica Biel as Lem’s love interest, Gary Oldman as the militaristic general out to protect his planet from alien invasion, and John Cleese as the leading scientist in charge of curing the alien invaders.

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