"Battle for Terra" review
by Mike DiGiorgio, writer

            The movie takes place on a planet called Terra (you know, as in Earth but not Earth), where a non-descript race of beings live in peace with each other and all the creatures around them (including “sky whales,” giant and obvious metaphors for the environmental movement.  We don’t actually see regular marine whales to know why these are called “sky whales,” but I’m probably being picky).  The tadpole-like Terrians float through the air oblivious to any conflict – until those stinking humans from a burnt-out waste planet called Earth show up to take them over.  The humans have ravaged their own planet through their own wastefulness, and they’ve come to kick out the Terrians and make Terra their new home. 

            Young Mala (Evan Rachel Wood) ends up escaping a melee with the humans and forms a friendship with one of their advance scouts, a pilot named Jim (Luke Wilson).  Together, they hope they can keep their respective races from going to war over Terra. 

It sounds like intense stuff, and to a young kid it probably is.  And young kids would have to be the target audience here, given the physical stature of Mala’s race.  The animators want parents and their little ones to look at these little ones and go “awwwww.”  Mala though looks exactly like her friends, who look exactly like their parents, who look exactly like everyone else.  And the voice work is unspectacular.  They all speak in timid voices that never stand out – even veteran actor James Garner’s distinctive voice doesn’t stand out among the rest. 

Kids can’t possibly form a connection with such bland heroes.  A wacky sidekick would have been a nice idea.  They come close with Jim’s robot servant, but the jokes connected to it are obvious and lame.

            The blandness extends to the overall look of the movie.  Jim’s face has virtually no features.  He looks like a mannequin, as do all the other humans.  The action sequences are tame, perhaps not to scare the kids.  But it also won’t engage them. When things blow up, they do so softly – in little poofs.  The music never booms to indicate something dangerous or heroic or even interesting is happening. 

            At least the 3-D must be good, right?  At one point, I took off my glasses to look at my watch and neglected to put the glasses back on.  It was probably a full minute before I remembered to put them back on.  I was looking at the screen and didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.