“Planes”

MPAA Rating: PG for some mild action and rude humor

Cast: Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Brad Garrett

Time: 92 Minutes

Release Date: August 9, 2013

Disney’s “Planes”, which opens in theatres today, follows the journey of a small Midwestern plane, Dusty Crophopper, (voiced by Dane Cook) who aspires to race around the world. The underdog story shows that with the right attitude, good friends at your side, and some hard work it is possible to overcome your perceived limitations.

Even though “Planes” was not produced by Pixar, it is set in the same universe as Pixar’s Cars, and, like its predecessor tells a story with a good message in a way that kids will enjoy. Dusty’s character was surprisingly humble for being voiced by the normally cocky Dane Cook, and the lessons he learns in perseverance and overcoming adversity, while cliche, are certainly applicable to many kids.

In the same way that “Cars” had nods to Automotive and Nascar aficionados, “Planes” features enough attention to detail to delight aviation enthusiasts, who would likely need multiple viewings to catch every inside reference. Every plane in the movie is modeled after an actual aircraft, and in many cases the characteristics of that aircraft influence the personality of the character in the film.

Though the premise would seem to foretell non stop racing and action, “Planes” is actually a very dialogue driven movie. For this reason, it is unlikely to have the same appeal to smaller children as “Finding Nemo” or “Toy Story”. I don’t propose to know what eight year old boys like these days but I imagine that this film would be very appealing to them. There were some attempts at comedy relief, but it often fell flat. I’m not the biggest fan of Larry the Cable Guy in the world, but in the first “Cars” movie, his character provided important distractions from what was a fairly “grown up” story. There was no effective relief here, and it was missed. Overall, it was a warm, light hearted tale of adventure, friendship in the open skies, and an overall message to follow your dreams.

On my 1-10 Scale with 1 being the worst 5 being the best and 10 being the worst again I give Planes a 6.25000007 and an emoticon based sub ranking of: awwww…