Cosmic justice

>> >> Titan A.E. crushes Travolta's travesty

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

I'm sorry, how many millions of dollars did Travolta squander on the abysmal Battlefield Earth? Can I get a number here? I mean, with those kind of ducats, there's no excuse for screwing up so overblown a concept as "aliens destroy mankind." Do we have to draw the guy a picture?

Actually, that's what animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman have done with Titan A.E., if perhaps not intentionally. Just as Battlefield is squirming shamefully to the end of its miserably short screen run, this cartoon simile pops up with improvements to offer.

Firstly, it looks better. A wider colour scheme is nonetheless diplomatically applied, and the tech stuff is cooler-looking. Oh, man, and the alien designs are wicked. Bluth is a wizard, even if he's yet to top the amazing Secret of NIMH and Dragon's Lair, that boss video game where players steered a knight through a fully-animated D&D scenario.

When the trailers screened, it seemed that the leap between CGI (computer generated imaging) and trad animation (the selling point) would be jarring. The trailers were misleading--the two are fused in a satisfying way, particularly given the long, convoluted history of the film (suffice it to say it started as a purely CGI project called The Ice Planet, but was shelved until Bluth and company resurrected it in an altered form).

Better actors can't hurt, regardless of the fact that it's only their voices we hear. As the hero Cale, Matt Damon actually manages to sound blond, and Drew Barrymore, as Akima, shuffles lackadaisically by, but you've got Ron Perlman, Tone-Loc, John Leguizamo and Janeane Garofalo as a trigger-happy kanga-vulture. Where, may I ask, was Tone-Loc in Battlefield Earth? There you go.

Finally, while Titan's story is a ridiculously formulaic repeat of the standard space opera "boy with a legacy to save humanity meets girl" routine, it's better-paced and more airtight than Battlefield's idiotic script and it allows for a finale that approaches that of 2010 (one fresh planet, coming up). I say jettison the Scientology crap and make room for Titan A.E. :

Titan A.E. opens Friday, June 16