Planet 51 Teaser Trailer
Ilion Animation Film Stars Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, John Cleese
Jan 16, 2009
As much as journalists love to work on phrases to show how a movie sucks ("likely causes cancer in lab animals" is a personal favourite), it's even more fun to see a studio making decent product.
That's appears to be the case with Ilion Animation's Planet 51, an alien invasion comedy that has some real potential after being bashed from pillar to post in the wake of New Line Cinema's collapse.
A teaser trailer for the flick recently hit Cyberland, and it does everything a trailer's supposed to do: set up the plot without telling the whole story, and toss in a couple of laughs (or shocks) to get the audience going.
Justin Long, Jessica Biel, Dwayne Johnson Star in Planet 51
Here's the film's synopsis, taken from Ilion's website.
"On Planet 51, the locals have two antenna, eight fingers and tons of fear about alien invaders. They live in a world like our suburban 1950’s, with sci-fi flicks, gory comic books and paranoid army generals barking about monsters from outer space.
"A young inhabitant of Planet 51, Lem (Justin Long), thinks that space can be wonderful, but he lacks the courage to even move out of his parents’ basement. Then one day, out of the sky, an alien ship appears with something funny written on it: NASA. It is piloted by astronaut and ladies man, Captain Russ Baker (Dwayne "Don't Call Me The Rock" Johnson). Russ had expected to plant the American Flag on a barren planet, only to land at someone’s backyard barbecue.
"Now Captain Russ Baker’s new friend, Lem, must keep him safe from the fearful authorities and help him recover his confiscated ship to get back home."
Jessica Biel is voicing the role of Neera, a possible love interest for Lem (No! Really?) and Seann William Scott plays Lem's goofy sidekick Skiff. Jorge Blanco is drecting from a script written by Joe Stillman (Shrek).
Sony/Tri-Star Distributes Ilion Animation Film
Using Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in the background while Capt. Baker takes his first steps on Planet 51 is cliché, but the rest of the sequence spoofs the 1969 moon landing brilliantly, including the hopping steps Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took.
Oh yes, and the Alien dog is a great touch.
Okay, so thumbs up for a kick-ass trailer, but will the rest of this movie do as well? The signs are looking good: there's no sense that Ilion is tossing all the best bits into the trailer in order to sell this thing, that they have plenty of laughs in reserve. It's always concerning when a fledgling studio tries to get big names for its voice cast (see Terra, Delgo . . .) but the trailer isn't promoting the cast members' names as a way to get people in theatres.
So take a bow, Ilion, and hopefully Planet 51 lives up to this trailer's potential when it debuts on November 20th.
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