Planet 51

Sometimes, the reviews on Rottentomatoes are not to be trusted. Planet 51 is one of the classic children's shows, featuring an alien "invasion" with the invader/invadee roles switched. When I last checked, the reviews were in the low 20%, which basically made the show exceptionally bad. This time, though, the reviews seemed quite fixated on how the show's jokes were unfunny and it was childish (unsurprising for a children's show) and incorporated slapstick scatological humor.

Well, given what I saw in the trailers, I was quite inclined to give it a spin despite its terrible reviews on Tomato. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a show with reasonably funny kid jokes and quite some dashes of cuteness. All that interspersed with cultural references and especially jibes at general human paranoia when faced with the unknown. Planet 51 is a standard old story of alien arrives, everyone goes panicky and eventually alien gets to go home when the natives settle down.

I suppose the show was largely victimized by serious-minded adults rating the movie the way they would as serious-minded adults. There seemed to be little appreciation for the general silliness, the somewhat simple textures and all that cute. I would not think this movie was great, but it does get a 7/10 from me nonetheless.