Planet 51

When Chuck the astronaut (Dwayne Johnson) lands on a distant planet filled with little green people, he is surprised to discover that we are not alone in the galaxy. But he gets the shock of his life when the residents of Planet 51 mistakenly believe that his presence is the start of an alien invasion of the human kind! Luckily, Lem (Justin Long) quickly realizes that Chuck is friendly and makes it his personal mission to help him return safely to his ship.

Featuring the voice talents of:  Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Gary Oldman, Sean William Scott, John Cleese to name a few.

Rating:  pg 




This is one of the reasons why I love owning a video store.  Even though my children aren't old enough to watch these films, I still get to view them as part of my "work". 

This was a moderately funny film.  While some cast up the fact that it's not a Pixar film and all that, I enjoyed the bright colors and clear graphics.  Yes, they are very 2 dimensional but still they are fun.  I especially enjoyed the way they portrayed the aliens and how the added a lot of kitchy 1950's style into the Alien world.  Indeed the very opening of the movie is reminiscent of those early 1950's cheesy, horror flicks.

I would definitely say that the pg rating is accurate.  The opening scene consists of a film of their planet being attacked, lots of shooting and fight scenes with aliens being disintegrated.  Also, in many scenes the Astronaut is considered to be dangerous and there are a lot of references made about eating brains and turning into mind zombies and is repeatedly shot at.  The main point of the aliens in capturing the astronaut is killing him and removing his brains.

Otherwise, there is very little else that could be questionable in this movie.  There is one use of the word "friggin" and in one scene an alien stumbles over the word astronaut saying "ass" when another alien quickly jumps in with "stronaut", so it's barely noticeable.  Two aliens in the end scene kiss.  That's about it. 

If your children watch mildly violent shows already like batman etc, then this film would be fine for you.  Personally I waver on this type of film but when I think about the number of questions that are certainly to crop up with my children like "why do they want to take out their brains" etc, I think it's best to wait awhile.

Movie Mama