Satisfactory sci-fi

REVIEW

‘’Titan A.E.

Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman

Voices by Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore

Rated PG

Opens June 16

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With live action producers squandering millions on self-important futurist drivel (remember Contact?) and self-indulgent, wholly synthetic sci-fi primal scenes (Phantom Menace, anyone?) and incomprehensible camp overkill (Battlefield Earth), it is nice to see that someone in Hollywood remembers that making a satisfying science-fiction movie is not rocket science. Especially since science-fiction enthusiasts tend to be such a generous audience. All we ask is for an underdog we can feel good rooting for, genuinely villainous villains, a few impossible vistas, a slew of sexy machines and some ideas that are far enough afield to create the illusion of novelty without actually rocking the generic boat.

Given those criteria, Fox Animation’s Titan A.E. is, against all odds, tailor-made to be a sci-fi classic. While the genre has been on the A-list for teens since Star Wars, animated features made not for families but for the coveted 14-20ish demographic are a risky proposition. Previous attempts, some of them noble, like Nelvana’s woefully underrated Rock and Rule (1983) and Bakshi’s misguided Lord of the Rings (1978) barely got off the ground. Titan, with its robust promotional campaign and video-game aesthetics, might just reach escape velocity.

The film is an interesting fusion of old and new, with cutting edge digital work combined with traditional cel animation sequences supervised by veteran ‘toonster Don Bluth, the most durable if not necessarily the most gifted animator ever to defect from and defy the mighty Mouse (he left Disney in 1979 and went on to produce The Secret of NIMH and Anastasia among other). Earth has been blasted out of existence by the Dredge, nasty neon energy beings who don’t want the human race to reach its potential. Homo sapiens, now homeless, are reduced to drifting around space in refugee colonies and taking crappy jobs for low pay, until a mechanically gifted orphan (all good heroes are, after all) - voiced by Matt Damon - discovers that he holds the key to finding the Titan, a lost spaceship that can help find a new habitat for humanity.

Before you know it, our reluctant hero is being pursued by the Dredge from one exotic, computer-generated environment to the next, accompanied by a group of aliens (one of whom, the turtle-faced, childlike Gune, turns out to be a bit of a scene stealer!), a former family friend with a dark secret (hey, there had to be at least one, right?) and a tough but dishy drifter with vaguely Asian features and the voice of Drew Barrymore. The characters are, on the whole, even more 2D than most ‘toons, and the story has a sophomoric Simon Says quality, but so what? Titan still manages to deliver the goods. The bad guys are satisfactorily despicable, the interstellar panoramas and alien worlds are spectacular, and the picture meets or exceeds Recommended Daily Allowances for blaster battles and high-speed digital dogfights. Titan A.E. may not be everything that a science-fiction picture - especially an animated one - could be, but at least, for a change, it’s enough. ??

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