Planes 2: Fire and Rescue ** (2014, Disney) – Movie Review

There’s a depressing air of melancholy and looking back on better times in Disney’s modest, minor animation sequel to their 2013 hit.

Dane Cook is back as the voice of Dusty Crophopper, the crop-dusting plane with a fear of heights who lived his dream of competing in a famous around-the-world aerial race. But now he’s just a sad old plane who can’t race any more because of health reasons – a killjoy female mechanic informs him his engine is damaged and his gear-box is stuffed, and it can’t be replaced as they don’t make them any more. He can’t race again, and he’s pretty much on the scrap heap.

But then an offer comes for him to join the Fire and Rescue Team, who reluctantly accept and train him as an aerial firefighter. And so Dusty joins forces with veteran fire and rescue helicopter Blade Ranger (voice of Ed Harris) and his team, all-terrain vehicles known as The Smokejumpers. But that pesky red light keeps coming up on Dusty’s dashboard and he can’t fly any more. Until….

This parable about an old model struggling to cope with obsolescence in his job market just might have challenged Up if they could have done it better, much better. Fair’s fair, it’s a new direction for the Cars/Planes franchise to go, and that’s good, it’s not simply a rehash of the original.

And the Fire and Rescue stuff doesn’t eventually produce a thrilling sequence when the fearless team battles a massive wildfire and Dusty defies his red light to save the day become a true hero. His fearlessness is foolhardy, but, this being Disney, Dusty is amply rewarded in terms of redemption and a major refit that could leave the way open for Planes 3.

The underlying messages for kids are good, too, but this isn’t really a very engaging story for them, and the film seems rushed and underdeveloped, with an unsatisfying story ark that starts slowly and too suddenly climaxes, with a resultingly thin and short running time of only around 75 minutes.

It’s not at all a bad film, just a bit disappointing. It’s well meaning, entirely pleasant and acceptable. But it lacks the magic of the best animations, Disney or otherwise.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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