Battle for Terra was a film I was anticipating based on the action packed trailer, but the movie itself simply wasn't good enough to hold my interest. Terra involves a peaceful race of sperm-like aliens that suddenly find themselves under attack by the seemingly more technologically advanced humans. The humans are looking for a new place to call home after ruining not only Earth but two other planets as well, and have decided to transoform Terra thus eliminating it's inhabitants. Not all of the humans are warlike, however, as one human decides to fight against the hostile takeover and find a better way.
Terra features a powerful array of voice talent including Evan Rachel Wood, Justin Long, and Dennis Quaid. Despite that, the characters all feel remarkably similar and indistinct. I found myself not really caring about anyone as a result. The humans are one-dimensionally evil or wimpy. And as for the Terrans they undercut the entire point of the story by giving them a means to defend themselves that doesn't fit at all with their nature. The action is standard, except for a pretty decent fight scene at the end, but by that point I was already bored to tears. The animation is atrocious by modern standards and reminds of those Don Bluth films that kept coming out when Pixar and Dreamworks were upping the ante.
4/10
Next Day Air
So see if you can follow this: A shipment of 10 bricks of cocaine is mis-delivered by inept, smoked out UPS guy played by Donald Faison. Instead of going to it's proper owners, it goes to two murderous thugs played by Mike Epps and Wood Harris, who then decide to sell the drugs to Epps' cousin, a big time dealer looking for one last flip before retiring. Meanwhile the druglord who sent the drugs is looking for his package, the people expecting the drugs are looking for the package, nobody's very nice and everybody's got a gun in their waistband and ready to use it.
If you walk into Next Day Air expecting to see Friday or First Sunday or another African-American ensemble comedy you will walk away sorely disappointed. Air is a dark buddy comedy at best, with Epps and Hall playing far more vicious version of Seth Rogen and James Franco in Pineapple Express. The violence is brutal and blunt, but makes sense considering the nature of the characters involved. Wood Harris, who most will recognize from HBO's The Wire, taps into that same energy here as Guch, the more fearsome and paranoid of the two. The rest of the cast is solid, with the exception of Mos Def who might as well have not signed up given that he has about two lines and is of no consequence to the story at all. In fact, if you've seen the trailer then you've seen all of his material.
Air comes off as an urban version of a Guy Ritchie film, full of loathsome but somewhat engaging characters all jockeying for position to claim the big score. Unexpectly, first time film director Benny Boom, who has built his career producing hip hop videos(is that why Mos Def is in this??) has found a way to make Next Day Air deliver. And on-time to boot.
6/10
