Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan
Lane, Janeane Garofalo, and John Leguizamo
Cale, Akima, Korso, Preed, Stith, Gune
Come on...a cartoon motion picture by a major studio
that ISN'T targeted at children? It's a surprising, admirable,
and dangerous proposition for even the most adventurous studio
executive. If you're going to take a risk, however, go all the
way with it, like TITAN A.E. does. Director Don Bluth (THE LAND
BEFORE TIME, AN AMERICAN TAIL) has set many audacious goals for
himself in his latest effort: to combine old-school storytelling
with an intricate sci-fi plot, to blend new computer animation
with old-school hand drawn frames, and to attract grown-up audiences
with anime-like fare. If only the animators at Disney had such
aspirations, perhaps cartoon films in America could reach new
heights.
Unfortunately for visionaries, however, the experiment
that is TITAN A.E. is not a successful one. While the artwork
is at times breathtaking, it never manages to escape its burdensome
dialogue and ham-fisted story. As Disney would be the first to
tell Mr. Bluth, any picture -- even a cartoon -- the script is
just as important as the images.
When the Earth is destroyed by an evil race of energy
beings, humanity becomes outcasts, an ever-dwindling group of
interstellar drifters. One of these, Cale (Matt Damon), is as
down-on-his-luck as they come. A group of spacefarers, however,
show him that in his DNA lies a map for the restoration of the
human race -- a map to a legendary ship, the Titan. As this (yes,
the word applies) "ragtag" bunch races to find the ship
before anyone else, true natures begin to bubble to the surface.
Among the group -- the lovely Akima (Drew Barrymore), the stern
captain Korso (Bill Pullman), the weapons specialist Stith (Janeane
Garofalo), the mapmaker Gune (John Leguizamo) and the amoral Preed
(Nathan Lane) -- are many traitors and friends of the human cause.
The question to answer: will there be a new future for mankind
among the stars?
(Yawn.) Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me. I dozed off there
for a minute. As would any fan of science fiction -- the plot
of TITAN A.E. rips off everyone from Arthur C. Clarke to Battlestar
Galactica to Roland Emmerich. It's probably best to focus on the
performers and the graphic artists; although inconsistent in their
quality, some of their work is able to overcome the limitations
of the twice-baked story they're telling.
On the plus side, there's the barely recognizable John
Leguizamo who, as Gune, brings a desperately needed dash of pleasant
charm to the space crew. His character (looking very much like
an amalgam of E.T., Yoda, and Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory)
makes the viewer smile in spite of herself; Gune's glass-is-half-full
optimism is a welcome antidote to the slacker posturing that consumes
most of the other characters. Also charming, in a completely different
way, is Nathan Lane, who brings a sneering elitism to the nefarious
Preed. It's quite a change from his LION KING days, and the transformation
is quite refreshing.
Sadly, the other performers are on autopilot. Garofalo
and Pullman, barely have any lines at all; Barrymore does her
best to sound like a hardened space waif, but only gets the waif
part right. Most distressing, though, is Damon, whose disillusioned
Cale is both dull and unlikeable.
The graphics are also hit-and-miss. The hand-drawn
artwork is of poor quality (looking a great deal like RESCUERS-era
Disney), while the scenes generated through computer animation
are awe-inspiringly magical. When the two styles are smushed together,
however, the resulting effect is a disjointed, jarring trip for
the viewer; one never knows if the next shot will be brilliant
or a waste of time. Unlike Disney's TARZAN, which found a more
seamless integration of the two styles, TITAN A.E. looks as if
the left hand never told the right hand what it was doing.
If we must damn the execution, however, we must also
rush to applaud the experiment at the heart of TITAN A.E. Film
Animation has long been relegated to stories for the pre-teen
set, whereas in literary circles, their graphic novel counterparts
have expanded and grown. Like live action movies, animation can
serve many different communities and many kinds of stories. TITAN
A.E. is a disappointment, but the idea behind it is absolute gold.
