Titan A.E.
The New Face of Animation
By Christopher Welch

: : : Our Rating : : :

I've been spoiled by a what many would consider a children's movie. The movie in question was last year's superb animated masterpiece The Iron Giant. This movie raised the bar for all animated films, it showed that there truly is more to animation than cute singing animals, and licensing tie ins. It showed that animation wasn't just for kids, and could be a medium to tell some truly imaginative, heart tugging, thought provoking stories. While Titan A.E. doesn't reach the same level as The Iron Giant it helps to prove the same things. Animation isn't just kids play anymore.

Seeing as we are talking about an animated film, the first thing I feel the need to point out is how superb the animation is in this movie. I will admit I was a bit apprehensive at first when I heard they were going to try and combine extensive 3D computer animation with more conventional hand drawn cell animation. My fears were put to rest within the first two minutes of film. Surprisingly this film expertly melds both styles together. While you may notice it a little bit at first you're soon so caught up in the story that you don't even notice it. One of things that helps is that the computer animation isn't too over done, and really just helps to accentuate, and work with the more primitive of the two styles. I can't help but think that one of the reasons this movie is animated is because the budget of the film if they tried to shoot it live action would probably triple that of Titanic. This film has a huge sweeping scope that rockets us to every end of the galaxy. The only way they could show most of this stuff is through animation. This is by far one of the film's strongest points is its pure unbridled imagination. No two creatures look exactly the same. Each world has its own distinct look and feel. Every frame of this movie shows that the makers of this film put countless amounts of time, and imagination into it. They didn't opt out like most Disney films by putting a cute little dog here to fill up space, or a talking horse here, or whatever the case might be.

Then there's the story itself. While the idea of a couple of rag tag humans looking for a lost space ship may seem a bit simplistic, the plot is anything but. There are all kinds of twists, and turns in this movie. A lot of which I didn't see, and these aren't your stupid twists just to have a twist. The entire script is very nice and linear, and naturally progresses the themes, plots, and characters in the film. One of the other extremely cool things about the script, is the way it handles things that would normally come of very cliched and hokey. For instance while I won't give it away. There is such a fresh spin put on a scene where the heros try to sneak past a guard, that it almost had me falling out of my chair I was laughing so hard. Every time you think something really cliched or stupid might be coming up, the event somehow does a one-eighty, and goes in a direction you didn't expect.

The only real problem with this film is the fact that it struggles where every other animated film (except The Iron Giant) has struggled. It lacks the ability to truly evoke a lot of emotion through its animated characters. While they have plenty of good emotions, that are very touching, and add a lot of nice aspects to the film. These animated actors are just not able to truly show the full range of emotion that they're real life, flesh and blood counter parts can. Sure its easy to make a cute animal or inanimate object look happy, and bubbly, but when you're dealing with serious emotions it doesn't come across as powerfully as it would in a live action film.

That small failing point aside Titan A.E. is truly a blast to watch. Plus it has enough character, and story to actually interest you in more than just the awesome visuals, and imagination blaring at you from the screen. While this film won't do the greatest at the box office, because it doesn't appeal to young kids quite as much as we've been told it should. This film, I feel will be looked back along with The Iron Giant as one of the animated movies that helped shape the face of animation in the twenty-first century.