A great chunk of animated films, since the release of the first Toy Story film, have mainly had the premise of a talking object or an animal. We’ve had talking pets, talking toys, talking cars, talking zoo animals, talking storks, and in this case even talking planes. The problem arises when the premise is that of something that normally doesn’t talk ending up speaking, which ironically the kickstarting Toy Story went quite beyond. A great bunch of films that apply the same formula, unfortunately, only pick the premise and don’t go beyond that. They’re mostly nothing but cash-grabs that run on ideas that have been explored in much better ways before. A lot of these films may not be the worst thing ever, but they’re almost always very middling in quality. Such is the case with Walt Disney Studios’ Planes: Fire & Rescue too.
How to Stream or Download Planes: Fire & Rescue
To stream or to download the film, click on the Download button at the end of the review. Check out also our review of the first movie in the series – Planes.
The Movie Review
This spin-off of the Cars franchise is unoriginal in the premise itself. Instead of a spin-off that involves a different kind of transporting vehicle, a better idea would’ve been to surround vehicles that perform a particular job, since here too, it’s mostly about racing. The protagonist’s struggles would similarly be adopted in the Cars sequels too.
Dusty Crophopper is one of the most successful racers in the world, but things begin to change after he ends up using his engine beyond its limits and the engine’s gearbox gets damaged. Since he’s not a young model, the particular gearbox he embodies is no longer available due to not being produced altogether.
Talk about poor healthcare for the elderly. He gets a warning light attached, which would warn him of damaging his gearbox too much. His days of being a racer are numbered, but that is what makes him fear going back to life as a crop-duster. This one time he goes beyond hits limits once again but ends up causing an incident at an airport, which causes a lot of fire. To make up for his carelessness, he volunteers to train as a firefighter, so he could meet the requirements that would help reopen the airport.
From there continues Dusty’s development as a plane, as someone who can serve things beyond his own passions. The problem is that severely similar storylines have already been explored by the very Disney that distributed the film. It’s the struggle of an individual going beyond their limits, only that an individual is a plane in this case and a car in the Cars franchise’s case.
The only issue is that both Cars and Planes fail to have actually interesting characters, and the dialogue writing doesn’t really favor the film overall. All depth that Planes: Fire & Rescue has is either unoriginal or completely under-utilized. It starts feeling like a plane-oriented parody of films that are driven by the character arc of aging and losing one’s access to one’s talents followed by redemption in some other way.
Bobs Gannaway’s vision for the film barely shows any authenticity, and the only prominent aspect that isn’t original is the film’s parody-like nature. Jeffrey M. Howard’s writing alongside Gannaway provides no identity to the film, it’s as if everything is about the characters’ manifestation as planes rather than the depth of their journeys. The music is nothing too fancy either, which is pretty rare for animated films because even the weakest ones are at least good on the ears. On top of everything, the film is very bland to look at.
Planes: Fire & Rescue is yet another unoriginal and uninspired animated film. It’s the kind that thrives on the premise alone, with the thrived premise itself being unoriginal for the most part.
