Titan A.E

Cale Tucker (Voiced by Mat Damon) is the only human of Space Salvage Station Tau 14. That is partly because humans are rare in the cosmos since earth was destroyed by an alien race called the Drej.

Growing up isolated, a third class citizen, and being at that magical age when the male human body tries to see if it can poison itself with testosterone, Cale has all the grace and social charm of a badger with hemorrhoids. But when a ship shows up with two humans on board, Cale's life changes forever.

Captain Joseph Korso (Bill Pullman) has come to collect Cale, to use him as a map to his father's work. Professor Tucker created something called The Titan, and it is in theory the last hope for humanity. The map is keyed to his DNA and with him dead, only Cale can unlock the mystery.

Akima (Drew Barrymore) is the other human. She is young, pretty, and cynical. You just know those two are hooking up.

Also on the ship are Preed, (Nathan Lane) Korso's right hand, the volatile and violent weapons officer, Stith (Janeane Garafalo: type casting much?) and the wildly creative and probably insane science officer Gune (definitely typecast: John Leguizamo.)

The Drej are right behind Korso and crew, and they drive the group on. The Drej want to destroy the Titan lest it become a rallying point for the human refugees.

They have various adventures, visiting strange planets, meeting odd aliens, finding the next clue on the map, getting shot at by the Drej. Next planet, repeat.

Cale is part of family for the first time since earth was destroyed. He learns that he is a social creature, and with every success he begins to care more and more about completing the project.

But through out history, man's worst enemy has always been man....

So, here are the questions. Will they find the Titan before the Drej? What does the Titan do? How will this affect his and Akima's relationship? What about his relationship with Korso? And how will they end the threat of the Drej once and for all?

This is one of only two movies made by 20^th Century Fox under its own aegis. Since neither did well, they shut down the Arizona facility and sub contracted from then on.

So why did it not do well? I mean it has an all star cast, and the animation is beautiful.

Well the plot is a little predictable. One could say that it is the mythic journey, and that would be fair. But so is predictable. There are only a few surprises in this movie. Of course, they are pretty good surprises.

Another factor is an incongruity between the CGI and the Animation. The Animation is very very good, but the CGI space backgrounds are phenomenal. You should never have the background upstage the heroes.

Another thing is the incongruity between humans and aliens. The humans are very human; this is some of the better animation out there. But the aliens are cutesy. They look like big bugs and lizards. They look like cartoons. An analogy would be how it would look for Aladdin to be dropped straight into an episode of Ed, Edd, and Eddie. It would be like dropping an animated Rembrandt in to the adventures of Archie and Jughead.

These are subtle things and I think that subconscious discomfort they cause drags down what is otherwise a pretty darn good movie.

The other thing that hurt it was the hype. It was compared to Star Wars; Cale was called an animated Luke Skywalker. Titan was good, but it is no Star Wars. I think there was a backlash when it was obvious that the add campaign had an inflated sense of its own value.

But that does not detract from the movie itself. And I think when judged purely on its merits, this little movie has held up pretty well since last millennia. I give it three and three quarters stars.