Titan, A.E.

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Titan, A.E.

Directed by: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
Written by: Ben Edlund, John August, and Joss Whedon
With Voices of: Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan Lane, Janesne Garofalo, and Johm Leguizamo

Rated PG for mild sensual situations.

Animation, other than Disney, is not being taken seriously these days and that is pity, as if Disney animation is the genre's standard. Titan A.E. is a smart, witty, and visually stunning animated feature that hopes to break the trend. I hope they do.

The year is 3022. Humans have conquered space, but have retained earth as their home. They create enemies, but none as strong and powerful as the Drej. They come to earth and blow it up. Hundreds of ships, including the Titan, escape and establish space colonies. The Titan, however, goes missing. There is only one person who has the answers to where it is and he is Cale Tucker (Matt Damon). The dilemma. Cale doesn't know this, nor does he want to believe it when Korso (Bill Pullman) shows up to take him on as a crewmember on the Valkyrie to find the ship. But he changes his mind when the Drej show up to kill him. The rest of the film is a cat and mouse play with the Drej, with some added plot twists, to find the Titan.

Titan A.E. feels like an animated Star Wars in which an angry young man abandoned by his father has to come to terms with his destiny in life and be the hero that the human race needs him to be. Not to forget that he is being hunted by the most evil prescence in the universe, the Drej, whose whole being is based on pure energy.

The story is thrilling and complex. It has that classic science fiction feel to it, like Lord of the Rings.

Animation is the perfect vehicle for this story. Science fiction and fantasy stretch the limits of reality, or what we are familiar with here, and show us vast, diverse, volatile, yet livable universe. In other words, with animation, we can fly through space clouds with energy-ghosts, speed across a lake under immense hydrogen trees, or anxiously travel through a gargantuan field of unstable ice-thorns. Titan gives us all of this. And, it is vivid and magnificent. And it should be. The visual effects were created under the helm of David Dozoretz, the visual effects supervisor for Star Wars: Episode I.

This film is also what it is because of its sound effects, created by Christopher Boyes, who won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects for Titanic.

Animation has come a long way, and I'm not referring solely to Disney. Last year seemed to warrant a Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards with such films as Toy Story 2, South Park, Princess Mononoke, The Iron Giant, and Tarzan. This year, already, you could add Dinosaur and this film as nominees.

Last update: 4/1/2005; 7:04:35 AM.