Ted (2012)

Directed by	Seth MacFarlane
Produced by	Seth MacFarlane Scott Stuber John Jacobs Jason Clark
Screenplay by	Seth MacFarlane Alec Sulkin Wellesley Wild
Story by	Seth MacFarlane
Narrated by	Patrick Stewart
Starring	Mark Wahlberg Mila Kunis Seth MacFarlane Joel McHale Giovanni Ribisi
Music by	Walter Murphy

John Bennett is a grown man who must deal with the cherished teddy bear who came to life as the result of a childhood wish...and has refused to leave his side ever since.

PLOT 

John Bennett, (Brett Manley) an 8-year-old boy who lives in Boston, is friendless as nobody will play with him. On the Christmas morning of 1985 John gets a teddy bear from his parents as a Christmas present and names him "Teddy" (Zane Cowans). That night John wishes Ted was alive so he can have a friend and his wish is granted by a falling star. The next morning, Ted comes to life with the mind of a human such as being able to walk and speak. At first both John and his parents are scared, but soon become overjoyed. Soon after, Ted becomes famous world-wide, but his fame is short-lived.

Twenty-seven years later, in 2012, John (Mark Wahlberg) and Ted (Seth MacFarlane) are still best friends and live together in an apartment in Boston doing drugs and boozing while watching TV. John's other room-mate and girlfriend of 4 years, Lori Collins (Mila Kunis) becomes annoyed that John is spending time with Ted and that he is acting like a child. After their dinner date one night, John and Lori discover Ted had invited hookers for a party with one of them defecating on the carpet. John soon helps Ted get an interview at a local supermarket where he gets a job as a shop assistant. Ted flirts and befriends Tami-Lynn, another new employee. The pair are caught having sexual intercourse during their shift, but this only causes Ted to get promoted and not lose his job much to Ted's annoyance. After a dinner-date which includes Ted and Tami-Lynn goes wrong, Lori admits to John that she knows he is still hanging out with Ted, even making excuses to leave work as a car rental assistant early. John promises to stop being with Ted.

A few nights later at a house party hosted by Lori's stalking boss Rex (Joel McHale) who has a crush on her, John gets a call from Ted that Flash Gordon star Sam Jones is in his new apartment. John, after some encouragement, disobeys Lori and goes to see Sam Jones at Ted's apartment. At Ted's party Sam Jones befriends the duo, and they have the time of their lives getting stoned, drunk and Ted singing karaoke. Lori though discovers John had betrayed her and tearfully dumps him. John blames Ted for what happened and asks him to get out of his life. A week later, Rex asks Lori out on a date and she accepts, hoping to temporarily distract herself from heartache and finally get Rex to leave her alone. Ted finds out and visits the hotel room where John is staying to tell him about it. John accuses Ted of lying and says he wishes he had never asked for a teddy bear as a kid that Christmas. John and Ted get in a dramatic fist fight, which ends with them making up and deciding to crash the Norah Jones concert at the Hatch Shell where Rex took Lori.

It turns out Ted is personal friends with Norah, so she agrees to let John sing a song onstage dedicated to Lori, which turns out to be Octopussy theme, All Time High, by Rita Coolidge, in which he sings off-key. John is fiercely booed off the stage by the angry spectators, but Lori is touched by the gesture and ends her date with Rex prematurely. The next day, Ted shows up at Lori's apartment and tells her that John is lost without her and offers to leave forever if it would help them be together and he tells her what happened that night at Rex's. Lori then leaves to meet with John, before Ted is kidnapped by a creepy man named Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) and his obnoxious, overweight son, Robert, who had offered to buy Ted from John in an earlier scene. At their home, Ted discovers pictures of himself all over the wall, and Donny explains that when he was a little boy, he saw Ted on TV and asked his father if he could have a magical teddy bear like Ted. His father said no, and Donny vowed that he would never say no like that to his own future son.

During Robert's play-time, Ted tricks the boy into playing a game of hide and seek, using the distraction to call John, who is now talking with Lori about their future together, but Donny catches Ted using the phone. Donny and Robert try to flee the house with Ted before being chased by John and Lori who shows up just in time to catch them in a car chase that leads them to Fenway Park. Ted manages to outrun Donny to the Green Monster, while John punches Robert in the face, knocking him unconscious. As they climb up one of the wall's light towers, Donny grabs Ted by the foot and accidentally tears Ted in half, causing him to fall limp to the field below. Donny runs away as the police show up, and John and Lori run on the field beside Ted. With his last breath, Ted tells John not to lose Lori again because she is the most important part of his life. The magical glimmer vanishes from Ted's complexion, and the life fades from his eyes. Unwilling to lose him, John and Lori rush back to Lori's apartment to try to stitch Ted back together; though they manage to do so, they are unable to bring him back to life, so they have no choice but to accept that he is gone. That night as John is asleep, Lori sees a shooting star and closes her eyes, appearing to make a wish. The next morning John wakes up and discovers that Ted has come back to life, without any visible trace of the injuries he had suffered the previous night. Lori admits that it was her wish that was responsible for saving Ted, and John finally proposes to her. John and Lori are then married and at their wedding, Sam Jones, who is apparently an ordained minister, presides over the service, and Ted is the best man at the wedding. After the wedding, Ted and Sam then end the day by doing the "Flash Jump".

The narrator (Patrick Stewart) reveals what happens to the characters after John and Lori are married:

• Ted continues his relationship with Tami-Lynn and gets promoted to store manager when he's caught eating potato salad off of her bare bottom.
• Sam Jones moves back to Hollywood to restart his film career and shares a studio apartment in Burbank, California with Brandon Routh, from "that god-awful Superman movie".
• Rex is forced to give up his pursuit of Lori, falls into a deep depression, and dies of Lou Gehrig's disease, which, ironically, had been wished on him by John.
• Donny is arrested by Boston police and charged with "kidnapping a plush toy," but the charges are dropped when everyone realizes how completely stupid that sounds.
• Robert gets a personal trainer, loses weight, and goes on to become Taylor Lautner.

TRAILER 

REVIEW 

The funniest movie character so far this year is a stuffed teddy bear. And the best comedy screenplay so far is "Ted," the saga of the bear's friendship with a 35-year-old manchild. I know; this also was hard for me to believe. After memories of Mel Gibson's bond with a sock puppet, "Ted" was not high on the list of movies I was impatient to see.

The opening scenes find the right tone. A treacly narrator (Patrick Stewart) describes a Christmas that reminds us of a "A Christmas Story," except for the jolts of four-letter words and anti-PC one-liners. We meet young John Bennett, the most unpopular kid in the neighborhood, so disliked that while a Jewish kid is being beaten up, John feels envious.

All young John wants is a true friend for life. For Christmas, his parents give him an enormous teddy bear the size of a first grader, and that night under the sheets with a flashlight, John asks Teddy to be his real and true forever friend. Teddy comes to life and agrees.

The miracle of a walking, talking teddy bear of course makes the little stuffed creature an overnight celebrity, and he appears on the Carson show. But his fame fades ("like Corey Feldman," the narrator explains), and he settles in as John's roommate for life. Years pass. Teddy is now a little frayed, and John (Mark Wahlberg), at 35, has a counter job at a rental car agency. Against all odds, he also has a fragrant girlfriend named Lori Collins (Mila Kunis), who has been waiting four years for a marriage proposal.

John and Ted lead an "Animal House"-like existence, inhaling wholesale quantities of weed and recalling their early years as "Flash Gordon" fans. American movies have recently featured a lot of male characters who are victims of arrested adolescence, but few who have resisted growing up more successfully than John.

The laughs in "Ted" come largely through the teddy bear's dialogue. With an edgy Beantown accent and a potty mouth, Ted insults and offends everyone he comes into contact with, and sees Lori as a threat to his friendship with John. This despite his own pastimes, which include drugs, hookers, and as we later discover, a torrid early 1990s affair with absolutely the last female vocalist you could imagine having sex with a teddy bear — and I mean the last.

The movie was co-written and directed by Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy"), who also provides Ted's voice and gives himself the same freedom he has in animation. The bear itself is a CGI creation, striking a reasonable balance between the agility of a sexual athlete and the clumsiness of Pooh. It appears that Ted is stuffed with cotton wool and feels no pain when an ear is ripped off, but he behaves as a living, breathing best buddy.

The plot of "Ted" is fairly standard but greatly embellished by MacFarlane's ability to establish comic situations and keep them building. One crucial scene occurs when Ted persuades John to leave Lori at a party ("just for five minutes") and come to Ted's own party, where their childhood hero has turned up. This is Sam J. Jones, star of the 1980 movie "Flash Gordon," who in middle age has become a party animal. How this situation ends up with an enraged duck attacking Ted you will have to discover for yourself.

There's also peril involving Donny, a creepy dad (Giovanni Ribisi) who as a child passionately wanted Ted to be his own teddy, and his pudgy spoiled son (Aedin Mincks), who wants Ted now. Their desire is pitched at such a perverse level that it approaches teddy-bear predation.

What's remarkable about "Ted" is that it doesn't run out of steam. MacFarlane seems unwilling to stop after the first payoff of a scene. He keeps embellishing. In Ted, he has an inexhaustible source of socially obnoxious behavior and language, and it's uncanny the way a teddy bear can get away with doing and saying things that we wouldn't necessarily accept from a human character. This is partly because Ted is a stand-up insult comedian trapped inside the body of a teddy bear.

I must end on a note of warning. "Ted" is not merely an R-rated movie, but a very R-rated movie — "for crude and sexual content, pervasive language and some drug use," according to the MPAA, and what they mean by "some" is hard to figure, because it could hardly contain more. No matter how much kids want to see the teddy bear movie in the ads on TV, steer them to "Brave." Trust me on this.

AVAILABLE DVDs/CDs

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2012, comedy, hollywood,

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Chennai Express (2013)

Directed by	Rohit Shetty
Produced by	Gauri Khan Ronnie Screwvala Siddharth Roy Kapur
Screenplay by	Yunus Sajawal Robin Bhatt
Story by	K. Subaash
Narrated by	Shahrukh Khan
Starring	Deepika Padukone Shahrukh Khan
Music by	Vishal–Shekhar
Cinematography	Dudley
Editing by	Steven H. Bernard
Studio	Red Chillies Entertainment

Chennai Express is a 2013 Indian romantic action-comedy film directed by Rohit Shetty and produced by Gauri Khan under the banner Red Chillies Entertainment. The film features Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone in lead roles.

PLOT 

Rahul Mithaiwala (Shahrukh Khan) is a forty-year old bachelor who lives in Mumbai. His parents died in a car accident when he was eight years old and was brought up by grandparents. His grandfather has a sweet-selling chain store – Y.Y. Mithaiwala. Before his birth centenary celebration, two of Rahul's friends suggest a vacation in Goa which he accepts. On the eve of the celebration, his grandfather dies whilst watching a cricket match. His grandmother tells him that his grandfather desired to have his ashes divided into two parts – to be immersed in the Ganges River and Rameswaram respectively. She requests Rahul to go to Rameswaram and immerse them. Rahul reluctantly accepts her request but was also eager to attend the Goa trip. He and his friends thus make plans to dump the ashes at Goa. But, they were forced to change the plan when Rahul's grandmother wanted to personally see him off. This forces him to travel by train; he booked a single ticket on the Chennai Express. He plans to meet his friends at the Kalyan Junction station from where they would travel to Goa by car. Rahul forgets to take his grandfather's ashes on reaching the station and when he comes back to get it, the train started to roll on it's wheels. While trying to step out of the train, he notices a girl (apparently South Indian) running to catch the train. He helps her board the moving train. He then sees four people running behind to catch the train, helps them all to get in and himself misses the platform to get off.

He tries to flirt with the girl assuming she does not know his language. To his surprise, she starts communicating by singing parodies of Hindi film music, so that the others don't understand. Rahul, on her demand, lends his mobile phone so that she can contact her friends but the men with her throw it away from the moving train. He gets annoyed by this, however keeps quiet seeing that they carry weapons and guns along. He informs the ticket examiner about them but they push the man into a lake below the railway bridge. Extremely panicked, Rahul learns that those men were actually kidnapping her and that she is Meenalochni Azhagusundaram (Deepika Padukone) a.k.a. Meenamma. She was trying to flee from a forced marriage to Tangaballi (Nikitin Dheer). Her father Durgeshwara Azhagusundaram (Sathyaraj), is a powerful headman of the Komban Kaum (an anagram of Kumbakonam) in Tamil Nadu. He wants her to marry Tangaballi so that he would assume control of the neighboring village as well.

Meena takes Rahul to her father and introduces him as her lover. Tangaballi challenges Rahul for a duel which he accepts in sign language. On the night of the fight, Rahul escapes with the help of a local Sikh policeman but in the turn of events, ends up in Komban Kaum again. Surrounded by sickle-wielding henchmen of Azhagusundaram, Rahul then pretends to take Meena as hostage and escapes again in her father's favorite car. When the jeep breaks down, they quarrel and go separate ways. But, Rahul not knowing which way to go, comes back to Meena who takes him to the Vidhamba village where a wedding was taking place. Meena lies to the people that they are a married couple who have eloped and needed protection and rest.

The villagers grow fond of the couple and take care of them as long as they stay while Meena realizes that she has fallen in love with Rahul. When Rahul has plans of leaving secretly, Meena does not want to earn the distrust of the affectionate villagers. As he tries to leave, he is caught by Tangaballi but the villagers help them escape again. Meena who persuades him to immerse his grandpa's ashes travels with Rahul to Rameswaram. There they complete the rites and on their way back, Rahul, realizing that he has also fallen for Meena, does not tell her where they're going. He takes Meena back to her father again and tries to make him understand and honor his daughter's wish. He also confesses for the first time that he loves her. Rahul tells Tangaballi and his goons that he has come ready for the fight this time. In the fight that follows, Rahul though severely injured emerges the winner. Meena's father and Tangaballi finally turn over a new leaf and accept that the heart of a common man like Rahul is much bigger than their physical ability and political clout. Azhagusundaram, allows Rahul to marry his daughter, the twist that changed his life forever. When they finally unite, the film leaves a message that love knows no barriers of region or language and that with a strong heart, there is no limit to what a common man can achieve.

TRAILER 

REVIEW 

1. There was a boy, with a dusky complexion and average looks who taught us in the nineties that if you love with the right intensions, you are bound to succeed. He created a belief in true love. He gave an altogether new definition to romance. Shah Rukh, seems to relive those moments of his youth through Chennai Express in which we get fleeting glimpses of his earlier films. 

Chennai Express begins with the famous train sequence of DDLJ and this time it is Deepika who needs the hero's hand. Chennai Express can also be called the 'best of SRK' as its storyline has assimilated the best shots from several of his films.

2. There is another boy, Rohit Shetty. His father was a famous action director of Bollywood. Carrying the same genes, Rohit's inclination towards action was evident in his first film, Zameen. But the film fell flat on the box office and Rohit realized that action alone cannot sell, unless it is tempered with the spice of comedy and drama. This realization led to the making of several chartbusters like Golmaal series, Bol Bachchan and Singham. Chennai Express picks the best of all these films along with Shah Rukh. So there hardly was any loophole left that might have toppled the film.

3. Chennai Express is the story of Rahul who has been entrusted with the task of taking the ashes of his grandfather to Rameshwaram, by his grandmother-his sole surviving family member. Unwilling but not willing to hurt her either, Rahul decideds to go and in the journey meets the runaway Meena Amma who is fleeing to escape an unwanted wedding formalized by her don father meets Rahul in the train and then begins a  saga of running, fighting, running and again fighting and then finally, in Shah Rukh's own words, everything gets all right.

4. Chennai Express uses South Indian words and anecdotes to entertain the north Indian audience for whom it is all Greek and quite funny too. Sometimes the ille-ille becomes boring, but since Rohit always makes an honest and unabashed attempt in making things funny, it does not matter so much.

5. This film has yet again included some timeless music into SRK's list. Piyamani looks ravishing in One-two-three-four and Deepika steals the show in Titli. But the songs are quite a disturbance in the storyline and they look more or less out of place. But then these are the ways of a typical Bollywood masala film!

6. Till now Rohit had confined his locations to just Mumbai and Goa, but in Chennai Express, pristine new locations of South India are presented beautifully.  The rural South India is at its best on camera.

7. Rohit has used everything to add comedy to the film. There is Southern tadka, there is north Indian masala, there are dwarfs and fatsos and there is SRK doing drunken comedy. Rohit knows two things for sure, that he cannot compete with the czars of serious cinema and that the audience spends money on ticket to go home fully entertained and he had taken care of these in Chennai Express.

8. SRK is at his best in romantic scenes. But he gets this opportunity only at the end of the film. He is slightly week in comedy and quite unconvincing in action sequences. But Deepika has mastered the role of Meena. Her chemistry with SRK however is less than perfect.

9. This film has nothing sort of promoted national integration as was earlier shown in promos. Except for SRK's speech to Deepika's father in which he says love knows no boundary, religion or region. But we all know this, isn't it?  

10. If you love mindless comedy, action, drama and romance and if you are willing to remove 'bakwas' word from your dictionary, you must watch this film. Your children are going to love it. Rohit Shetty has made a complete family entertainer.

DVDs/CDs of CHENNAI EXPRESS

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Planes (2013)

Directed by	Klay Hall
Produced by	Traci Balthazor-Flynn
Screenplay by	Jeffrey M. Howard
Story by	John Lassete Klay Hall Jeffrey M. Howard
Starring	Dane Cook Stacy Keach Priyanka Chopra Brad Garrett Cedric the Entertainer Julia Louis-Dreyfus Roger Craig Smith John Cleese Carlos Alazraqui
Music by	Mark Mancina
Editing by	Jeremy Milton
Studio	Walt Disney Pictures DisneyToon Studios

Planes is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated sports comedy film produced byDisneyToon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures It is a spin-off of Pixar'sCars franchise and the first film in a planned Planes trilogy. Despite not being produced by Pixar, the film was co-written and executive produced by Pixar's chief creative officer John Lasseter, who directed the Cars films.

Like most of DisneyToon's films, it was initially set to be released as a direct-to-video film, but was theatrically released on August 9, 2013 in the Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D formats. A sequel, titled Planes: Fire & Rescue, will follow in 2014.

PLOT

Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) is a cropduster plane who works at a cornfield and practices aerobatic manuveurs in his spare time, dreaming of becoming a racer. His dreams are scorned by his boss, Leadbottom (Cedric the Entertainer) and his forklift mechanic friend, Dottie (Teri Hatcher), yet supported by his fuel truck friend, Chug (Brad Garrett). Dusty and Chug train for qualifiers for the upcoming Wings Across the World race. The night before the qualifiers, Dusty asks an elderly and reclusive navy war plane named Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach) to teach him how to fly well, but Skipper refuses. Dusty enters the qualifiers, and although the audience mocks him for being a crop duster, he manages to wow them by his well-practiced flight maneuvers, but comes in 6th place and does not qualify. A few days later, a representative from the qualifier (Sinbad) visits his town looking for Dusty and announces to him that he now placed 5th. This is due to the qualifier ahead of Dusty using an illegal fuel enhancement, nitromethane, getting him disqualified and Dusty replacing him.

Later in the morning, Skipper visits Dusty and tries to talk him out of racing, but when Dusty explains he wants to prove he's more than just a crop duster, Skipper, with the help of his forklift assistant Sparky (Danny Mann), decides to mentor Dusty on his speed and agility. While in the midst of his training, Dusty admits that he has a fear of heights. Despite this, their training continues and when it is complete, Dusty heads off to the meeting of the race at John F. Kennedy Airport where he finds a friend in an eccentric, but loyal Mexican race-plane named El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui) who soon falls in love with a beautiful French-Canadian racer named Rochelle (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who shows little interest in him. Dusty then makes a rival of the arrogant and villainous three-time winner plane Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith), who rudely dismisses him as being only a crop duster. Dusty also falls in love with an Indian racer plane named Ishani (Priyanka Chopra).

The first leg of the race is from New York to Iceland. Dusty's refusal to fly high causes him to finish in last place. The second leg of the race is to Germany. Dusty shows good sportsmanship by saving another racer, Bulldog (John Cleese), from crashing when his eyes get squirted with oil from his propellers, winning Bulldog's respect, but finishing last again. The third leg is to an air base at Agra in India, while the fourth leg is over Nepal. In India, Ishani gives Dusty advice on how to fly low through the Himalayas by following some railroad tracks. However, he is forced to fly through a tunnel and narrowly avoids a head-on collision with a steam train, but miraculously finishes first in Nepal. Dusty realizes Ishani deliberately gave him bad advice to get a new propeller from Ripslinger and he shuns her.

The fifth leg is over the Hump (the mountains between northeast India and south China) to Shanghai, where Dusty gets into first place again. There, Dusty manages to help El Chupacabra win Rochelle over with a romantic song, which works a little too well.

The sixth leg is across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico. Ripslinger's henchmen, Ned and Zed (Gabriel Iglesias), destroy Dusty's navigation antenna. Lost and low on fuel and unable to find Hawaii, Dusty is found by two Super Hornets (Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards) who escort him to the USS "Flysinhower" (a reference to the real-life aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)) which allows him to land and refuel and be repaired. While on the carrier, Dusty sees a hall of fame set up for Skipper's squadron, but discovers that Skipper only flew one mission, which contradicts his previous reputation as a veteran of many battles. He then has to take off and try to beat an oncoming storm. The storm becomes very violent with enormous waves. Dusty gets distracted from flying due to his thoughts about Skipper and ends up crashing into the ocean, but is rescued. He is flown to Mexico to his friends, but he is severely damaged and may never fly again. Skipper confesses to Dusty that he did indeed fly only one mission in the Pacific theatre where his entire squad of trainees was killed in an attack on the Japanese Navy. Skipper was the only survivor, but torn by his guilt, he never trained another plane or flew again. Demoralized and heartbroken, Dusty begins to consider dropping out of the race, but is encouraged by his friends, racers and many of his new-found fans to continue and they all donate parts to have Dusty repaired.

The seventh leg is back to New York. With a change of heart and morale restored, Dusty becomes determined to win the race, but Ripslinger still won't give up and plots to sabotage his chances of winning. He and his goons ambush Dusty, but are thwarted by Skipper, who overcame his guilt and came to help Dusty. When trying to catch up with Ripslinger, Dusty conquers his fear of heights when his engine starts losing power, forcing him to ride the jetstream when he recognizes from clouds that a jetstream is overhead. Both he and Ripslinger make it to the finish line in New York. When it looks like Ripslinger will win, his ego gets the best of him and slows down to have his picture taken. Dusty seizes the opportunity and wins the race while Ripslinger crashes into some portable toilets. Dusty is congratulated by his friends and fans and Skipper thanks him for giving him the confidence to fly again. Skipper rejoins the navy on the Flysinhower with Dusty as his partner and they take flight together.

At the end of the credits, a message appears stating "Dusty Crophopper will return in Planes: Fire & Rescue."

TRAILER

REVIEW

Beware of critics gunning for Planes as if they were the Red Baron dive-bombing Snoopy. The aeronautical spin-off of Pixar's "Cars" franchise is carrying way too much unchecked baggage to be dismissed as yet another cartoon attraction in a summer already overrun with leafy warriors, collegiate monsters, high-octane snails, mumbling Minions and annoying Smurfs.

First, Disney—which owns the premier animation house that "Toy Story" built—had the audacity to put what was originally a straight-to-DVD release into theaters and pass it off as a "real" movie—and without the benefit of the kind of second-thought upgrades afforded to "Toy Story 2," a onetime direct-to-video project. Then a "Cars" logo was slapped on ads and posters, along with the tagline "From the world above Cars," perhaps causing some patrons to think "Planes" is a Pixar film instead a product of Disney's home-entertainment division. On top of that, they had the nerve to cram store shelves with beckoning toy replicas of the movie's cute flying machines, just in time to disrupt back-to-school shopping expeditions.

No one can fault Disney too much for seizing a money-making opportunity—especially once they realized they weren't going to make much "Hi-yo, Silver!" off of "The Lone Ranger." Instead, it all comes down to whether "Planes" will please its core audience of tots and their parents who want more of what "Cars" and its sequel (both probably the least-loved of Pixar's 14 features) gave them—a cleverly conceived human-less universe tweaked for vehicular inhabitants, zoom-y action stunts, hokey pun-filled humor and colorful characters. Judging on that scale, "Planes" modestly succeeds. Very modestly.

From the opening frames, adults will immediately notice a certain-stripped down sensibility, with the entrance of Dusty Crophopper (voiced with guy-ish gusto by Dane Cook), a Midwestern crop duster who dreams of competing in a race around the world against an eccentric flock of international competitors. It's 1965's "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines" but minus the men. Although there are plenty of swell loop-de-loop visual thrills in the 3-D-enhanced airborne sequences, the backdrops are barely filled out and eye-catching details are lacking.

The plot is generic to a fault, presenting Dusty as a typical fish out of water with big dreams whose fatal flaw is an inconvenient fear of extreme heights. The movie's flight plan follows the ups and downs of our brave little single-prop racer as he runs into an array of barriers—devious foes, a femme fatale, low fuel, bad weather and the ever-popular mechanical difficulties—while heading to such destinations as Iceland, the Himalayas and Mexico. Naturally, he has a crew of sidekicks including slow-witted fuel truck Chug (Brad Garrett), no-nonsense mechanic Dottie (Teri Hatcher) and Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach), a Navy Corsair who flew in World War II and is the grizzled-mentor answer to Paul Newman's Doc Hudson in "Cars." None will engender the sort of affection that is second nature in Pixar fare.

As for the globe-spanning cast, they are broadly drawn—and, in some cases, borderline offensive. Still, if you can buy El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui), a chubby Mexican aircraft—imagine Jack Black in "Nacho Libre" with propeller nose—who woos slinky French Canadian she-plane Rochelle (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) with cheesy lines ("Are you tired? Because you've been flying through my mind") and a mariarchi band that performs a slow-dance version of disco anthem "Love Machine," little else that should cause navigational problems. Well, maybe Cedric the Entertainer's crotchety Southern-accented biplane Leadbottom.

There are references to "Cars" (those mooing cow-tipped tractors make an appearance) and in-jokes that those with ages in the double digits might appreciate. When villainous plane Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith) sees that his iPad-like device (referred to as a Sky Pad) is broken, he shrugs it off: "A new one is coming out in two weeks." Still, considering that the appeal of "Planes" skews rather young, there are taste issues, including a disturbing scene that shows nearly an entire squadron of planes dying in an attack, and Dusty's manly reluctance to gain more speed by losing the dangling crop sprayer attached to his nether regions.

However, if you adjust expectations accordingly and watch the film through the mindset of a child, the minimalism of "Planes" might feel like a refreshing change of pace from the recent onslaught of loud CG spectacles. When a father walking out ahead of me asked his pint-size daughter how she liked the movie, she declared it as "Awesome!" with all the confidence a 5- or 6-year-old can muster. That is the opinion that counts.

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2013, animated, comedy, movie,

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