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Battle for Terra Our rating: Your rating:   MPAA rating: PG (for intense sequences of sequences of sci-fi action violence and some thematic elements) Genre: Action Theater release: May 01, 2009 by Lionsgate/Roadside Directed by: Aristomenis Tsirbas Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes Cast: Evan Rachel Wood (Mala), Luke Wilson (Jim Stanton), Brian Cox (General Hemmer), James Garner (Doron), Chris Evans (Stewart Stanton), and Dennis Quaid (Roven) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Watching Battle for Terra, the latest computer-animated 3D offering, is little like stepping into a breathtaking cathedral in a strange city and finding a church play going on in the middle of it. The drama may be competently done, but it's the least interesting thing in the room. You keep looking past the action, stealing glances to one side or the other, absorbed in the splendor of the setting. Earnest as the players are, the moralizing story draws you in only fitfully, and most of the time you'd rather steal away and just wander aimlessly from one corner to another, taking it all in.

Give writer-director Aristomenis Tsirbas and co-writer Evan Spiliotopoulos credit: Not only have they pulled off an exercise in visionary world-building warranting comparison to Miyazaki—and without the backing of a major studio—they've crafted an uncompromising, hard sci-fi parable in a genre, computer-animated fantasy, dominated by comedy, mostly with anthropomorphic animals and such. In its own way, Battle for Terra is as daring as WALL-E, and if it isn't as accomplished or satisfying, the story and the science make a lot more sense.

The first few minutes, before the story gets rolling, are mesmerizing. The alien world on which Battle for Terra is set is a sort of aerial seascape, with flora and fauna inspired by aquatic Earth species, but without the water. A winged fish hovers like a hummingbird, seaweed-like forests stretch skyward and broad-leafed plants dangle long stems like water lilies in an invisible lake.

Mala (Evan Rachel Wood), the independent-minded heroine

An awesome whale-like creature, disconcertingly referred to by one of the locals as a "sky whale" (as if our terrestrial species were his reference point as well as ours) soars majestically through the sky like the flying humpbacks from Fantasia 2000's "Pines of Rome" sequence. As for the locals themselves, they have vaguely fishy faces and tadpole-like bodies, with floating movements like sea horses.

Sooner or later, though, the story has to be about something, as the filmmakers are all too aware. While it isn't as obvious in this regard as it might have been—or perhaps the message is simply muddled after various stages of revision—Battle for Terra never gets past feeling like something that's self-consciously meant to be Good For You.

At first, as we encounter the peaceful but paternalistic alien society, and meet the requisite sassy, independent-minded heroine Mala (Evan Rachel Wood), the sort of free thinker who likes to invent things, explore forbidden areas and gets sent to her room for daring to question the Teachings of the Elders, it looks like it might be about oppressive traditionalism and authoritarianism.

Senn (Justin Long) and his flying machine

Then, when strange phenomena in the sky—followed by a frightening encounter and a series of abductions—are mistaken by the simple creatures as a matter of "gods" and "miracles," it looks like the film might become a parody of organized religion. (One of Mala's inventions, a telescopic lens, establishes her as a pert young Galileo bucking the establishment—a device that goes back to the story's roots as a seven-minute short.)

But then comes a key moment in which Mala tells her people's leader, Doron (James Garner), that her father (Dennis Quaid) has been taken by "the gods." Doron replies simply, "They're not gods. They're invaders . . . pretenders. They're dangerous." And it turns out that the Terrian leaders aren't necessarily authoritarians seeking only to keep the masses ignorant and superstitious, etc. In fact, they may be wise and enlightened.

Then the aggressors—is this really a spoiler?—turn out to be, yes, humans, and it's revealed that mankind has come to this distant world because—surprise surprise—Earth (along with its nearest neighbors) has been destroyed by environmental disasters and war. And flyboy Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson), an initially hostile but eminently enlightenable John Smith to Mala's Pocahontas, comes to learn that the peace-loving aliens seemingly know nothing of war, and witnesses their "Ceremony of Life," a politically correct Gaia-esque celebration to "thank Life for what it brings." (What happened to their gods?)

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