n the year 3028, the long history of Earth comes to an end. The alien
Drej, frightened by the potential of a new scientific breakthrough
by human scientists--the Titan Project--destroy our planet and scatter
the remnants of humanity to the stars. During
the final evacuation, Cale Tucker (Damon) is separated from his father, a leading
scientist on the Titan Project. Cale's father puts him on an evacuation ship, in
the care of an alien colleague, and then boards the Titan starship to take it to safety.
Cale never sees his father again.
Fifteen years later, humanity is at the bottom of the galactic pecking order.
The survivors live mostly in "drifter colonies" tacked together from the hulls of
derelict spacecraft. Cale, still bitter about what he sees as his father's
abandonment, works on a deep-space salvage station among aliens who
look down on "human scum."
His life changes forever when Korso (Pullman) arrives on the station. Korso,
another former Titan project member and now captain of the starship Valkyrie,
has been looking for Cale. A map, genetically encoded in Cale's DNA, is the only
clue to the location of the lost Titan. Korso and his ragtag
crew need Cale in order to find
the ship, which represents mankind's last chance for a new homeworld of its own.
Unfortunately, the Drej also need Cale's map to find and destroy the Titan
forever.
And so the galaxy-spanning race is on. As Cale struggles with his destiny, he finds
himself drawn to Akima (Barrymore), who grew up in a drifter colony and knows how
important a new homeworld is. She has a lot to teach Cale about heroism and hope,
but only if he can stay ahead of the relentless Drej long enough to find the Titan,
where the answers to his questions await.
Beautiful but baffling
An enormous amount of talent got thrown at Titan A.E., including
that of many people
whose other work has earned viewers' respect. Unfortunately, combining all that
creative input in this case just produced an incoherent mess.
Titan A.E. is often beautiful to look at, but that's the best that can be
said for it. It offers practically no characterization, and only the most rudimentary
explanation as to why things are happening. As a result, it is difficult to
connect
with the film's characters as they careen from one chase scene to the next in a story
that plays out remarkably like a video game.
That's too bad. The idea of a human diaspora and a hero rising to rebuild mankind's
broken spirit could have made for a powerful, emotional story. Actually telling that
story would have meant cutting some action sequences, though, and the filmmakers weren't
about to do that.
What keeps viewers watching is the mystery waiting at the finish line. What is the
Titan Project? Sadly, the payoff provides only a few answers, and those don't help.
What was Titan's purpose in the first place? Why are the Drej so upset about it?
Why does humanity need it to get a new planet, and why won't that one just get blown
up as well? These questions are either ignored completely or given answers so
nonsensical that they offer no satisfaction.
The directors' commentary track on the DVD is very revealing. Bluth and Goldman
spend much of it grousing about things that didn't turn out as they'd hoped,
particularly how studio executives kept tinkering with the movie based on
focus-group screenings. The result is a textbook case of how plenty of very talented
people can set out with good intentions to tell an ambitious story, and end up with
a starship wreck.
