A lowly crop-dusting plane gains entrance into a worldwide racing event, much to the chagrin of a snooty champion, and must overcomes his fears and limitations to become the champion. Sounds a bit familiar? That's because we already saw something exactly like this in the form of TURBO, except this protagonist is three-dimensional and the film is is set in the CARS universe. You'll know it's the world of CARS because of two major facts: First, the film flat out tells you with an opening graphic, and secondly, the doctors working at DisneyToon Studios transplanted nearly all of the same features of the first CARS film into PLANES. Old vet Paul Newman has been replaced by Stacy Keach, goofy sidekick Larry the Cable Guy is now Brad Garrett, love interest Bonnie Hunt is Priyanka Chopra, braggadocious rival Michael Keaton is Roger Craig Smith, etc., etc. Even with this copying and pasting in the writing, the film feels like it was rushed to the market too quick. Plot progress consists entirely of jumping ahead on a dime, making the race even more trivial and non-suspenseful. Worst, some scenes aren't resolved: The main character is heading straight towards a fast train, stuck in a tunnel with nowhere to go, then it just cuts to white and the protagonist begins to land at the next checkpoint. Tell me Jeffrey M. Howard and company, how did he get out of the cock-a-doodie tunnel? But the really strange, off-kilter moment is a flashback to actual world warfare; why is the goofy world of humanized vehicles and oil/poop jokes have horrors such as that? Despite these bewildering errors, I didn't have much trouble sitting through the movie. It's certainly mediocre in all levels of production but it is absolutely better than CARS 2.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
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