PLANES: FIRE AND RESCUE (6 out of 10) – Directed by Bobs Gannaway; Starring Dane Cook, Ed Harris, Julie Bowen, Curtis Armstrong, John Michael Higgins, Hal Holbrook, Wes Studi, Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Stacy Keach, Cedric the Entertainer, Danny Mann, Barry Corbin, Regina King, Anne Meara, Jerry Stiller, Fred Willard, Captain Dale Dye, Kevin Michael Richardson, Patrick Warburton, Rene Aberjonois, Erik Estrada; Rated PG for “action and some peril.” In wide release July 18, 2014: 83 minutes.
It’s hard to dislike a movie that looks really gorgeous and has some nice undertones about heroism and the importance of nature conservation. But somehow “Planes: Fire and Rescue” manages to do just that with a paint-by-numbers plot and lead character completely devoid of charisma. That being said, it is a great improvement over both of its series predecessors, last year’s “Planes” and 2011’s “Cars 2.”
The plot is fairly straightforward: our protagonist from the first film, Dusty, has become the famous champion racing plane he always knew he could be. However, he’s developed a problem with his engine where pushing his throttle too hard will cause him to stall– and the parts to fix him are out of production. (If there is a more apt metaphor for the problems with this film, I haven’t found it.) Until they can be replaced, he has no future in racing, sending him into an emotional . . .ahhem. . .tailspin, making him recklessly try to push himself too hard.
After one of these accidents causes a fire at his local airstrip, the feds tell them if they don’t get another certified fire vehicle on staff, they’ll shut them down. This puts their annual corn festival in peril, a major tourist destination now that Dusty is world famous. Oh noez! Not the corn festival! (It actually is kind of endearing, if not a little. . .errr. . . corny.)
So Dusty decides to go get trained by Blade Ranger (Ed Harris) in Piston Peak National Park while waiting for his replacement parts to be found. There he meets a plucky gang of fire-fighting “Smoke Jumpers” and has to learn the skills to be certified. The plot proceeds exactly as you’d expect it to.
All that being said, the film’s target audience is likely not going to be as picky about the plot being formulaic and predictable and will enjoy themselves greatly. Looking for a place to let the kids escape the summer heat for an hour and a half? This movie’s got you covered. And they’ll have a great time.
And there is a lot that this movie gets right. First off, it’s gorgeous. There are several shots of Midwestern sunsets that are spectacular. Even better is the scenery in the fictional Piston Peak National Park, which seems to be an amalgam of all of the best parts of Yellowstone and Yosemite combined. The scenes where they are fighting fires, especially in the film’s climax at night, are just beyond stunning.
There is also a firefighting montage set to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” And they play the. whole. song. I can’t not like a movie that does that, especially when they do it extremely well. The action sequences like those are what makes this film worth watching.
The supporting cast is also amazing. Ed Harris carries this movie, in much the same way that Paul Newman offered a mentorship role in the first “Cars” film. And just like in that film, he has a tragic backstory of how he ended up where he is.
The rest of the supporting cast are great, too. John Michael Higgins brings a giant amount of smarm as the new park superintendent more intent on tourism than conservation, funneling resources from the fire services to his pet projects.
Just look at that guy. You know what he’s all about. And then Fred Willard shows up as the Secretary of the Interior in the third act which helps add some extra gravitas.
The rest of the team of smokejumpers are also incredibly fun. Veteran character/voice actor Curtis Armstrong basically reprises his role from the [adult swim] cartoon “Stroker and Hoop” as the team’s mechanic, and Julie Bowen and Wes Studi round out the main planes in he group. Oh, and did I mention Julie Bowen’s plane has a crush on Dane Cook’s? This brings about several of the more fun moments of the film.
And then Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara show up as vacationing tourists on their 50th anniversary and almost steal the whole movie in one scene. Adorable. Patrick Warburton also shows up far too late in the film as another fire truck “Pulaski” and is completely underutilized.
At 83 minutes, it’s also the perfect length. There isn’t too much filler here and it moves along at a decent clip.
And finally, something I really appreciated were some subtle, some other not-so-subtle messages about conservation and nature. The general conflict between the smarmy superintendent completely focused on making money off of tourists versus the park rangers and other staff who want to protect the park and its natural beauty was clear.
There were also some shout outs to the history of our national parks as well: the train who services the park is named “Muir,” an obvious reference to naturalist John Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite and other wild places by putting them aside as national parks. (Side note: this is the second shout-out to Muir in as many weeks in Hollywood, as the apes in “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” live in Muir Woods outside San Francisco, also a place he helped protect and preserve.) Most of this will go over kids’ heads, but this was a welcome undercurrent in this film.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot weighing this movie down. Dane Cook is a black hole of charisma in this film, which I totally do not understand. He’s a great stand-up comedian, and he’s shown himself to be capable on screen in films like “Dan in Real Life.” But, just as in the previous Planes movie, he’s just not interesting and I can’t really care about his journey, especially when he’s an annoying, entitled little jerk of a plane who doesn’t listen to the voice of experience (Ed Harris) and almost gets himself and others killed because of it. When I asked my 9 year old daughter what the moral of the movie was, she said it was about the importance of breaking the rules. Ummmmmm. . . not good messaging.
Also, there’s the aforementioned lazy and uninspired plotting. Most of the script feels this way, right down to the inclusion of several off-color jokes. Why do kids’ movies have to include obligatory fart and poo jokes?
But this script takes it a step further, with the inclusion of not one, but two boob jokes. The planes and cars are hanging out at a roadhouse location called “Hooders” where the O’s in the name are made up of very round, very enlarged headlights. In the second boob joke, Julie Bowen’s plane tries to put her wing around Dane Cook, lowering a pontoon to squeeze him in closer. “Yes, they’re real,” she remarks. Ummmm, excuse me?
It’s not that these jokes are off color, it’s that they’re lazy and cheap and will go over their target audience’s head. More importantly, they’re just not funny. So, why include a boob joke for the amusement of the adults in the audience? Especially ones as unfunny as that? I’m not offended by the content, I’m offended at the cheapness.
Also, while I appreciated the references to a certain 80’s tv show, the kiddos will not. I’m not sure if that’s an overall net positive or negative.
But overall, “Planes:Fire and Rescue” is not a bad movie. It’s just not a great movie. And for a studio whose recent animated films include “Frozen” and “Wreck-It Ralph,” I have to expect more from them than just a cynical cash grab of a sequel. But, considering the improvement in quality from last year’s “Planes” and how gorgeous this animation is, I have to give them some credit. Too bad even this supporting cast can’t rescue it from a lackluster script and boring lead. But your kids probably won’t mind. And it is the best release by any major studio this week, though that’s not saying much when comparing it to “The Purge” and “Sex Tape.”
6 out of 10.