Opens: February 15 (The Weinstein Company). Nevertheless, the creatures and the human villain provide the necessary spice. Toward the end of Escape, we are treated to sentimental re-affirmations of brotherly bonding that add very little to this adventure. What’s disappointing about so many of today’s animated movies is that even though they run 90 minutes or less, they usually seem padded. A couple of chase sequences take advantage of the 3-D technology.
Canadian director Cal Brunker provides an amiable spirit for this caper. Visually the film offers modest if colorful pleasures. On Earth, Scorch and Gary encounter a bevy of other aliens, voiced by performers like Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson and George Lopez, with Steve Zahn and Chris Parnell providing additional comic relief as a couple of trailer-park stoners eager to help the aliens. Corddry and Fraser do well with their roles, though Sarah Jessica Parker and Sofia Vergara are wasted as their love interests back home. Ricky Gervais has some droll moments as the voice of the computer assisting the mission, though he’s underutilized. A documentary shown to Scorch and Gary to illuminate the backward nature of life on Earth is a highlight, though the film should have tried to incorporate more of this puckish social satire. The story lurches forward in fits and starts, but there are welcome bursts of humor along the way. There’s a complication in the form of a traitorous bigwig on Baab ( Jessica Alba), who is having a very long-distance romance with the general, at least as long as he wears his Elvis toupee.
From that point on, the plot is predictable and undernourished.
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