Titan A.E. has always been a mystery to me. From the first teaser preview to the latest full blown distributed-on-CD-rom promotional extravaganza, I absolutely couldn't tell if this movie was going to rule, or if it was going to suck. I mean, usually I have a very good sense about these things, but this one just completely eluded me. I could tell that it was going to swing wide to one end of the quality scale or the other, but I had no idea where it was going to land.

Even going in with only this expectation, I still managed to come out of Titan A.E. disappointed.

It both completely failed to rule or to suck. It was complete vanilla, middle-of-the-road, no spikes on the coolness meter mediocrity.

I suppose the thing that I really don't understand is this: How can Don Bluth consistently suck, yet still manage to be revered in animation circles as some sort of sub-Disney demigod of the medium? Is it just because busy mothers recognize his name when they have to dump the kids at the mall for a Calgon-take-me-away afternoon?

"Brad Bird? Who the hell is Brad Bird? He didn't make An American Tail! He's nothing to me! Hey kids, don't go see that Iron Giant crap, go and see Balto instead. That's Don Bluth. He's famous."

Plus he looks like what Malcom in the Middle is going to look like when he grows up. See? But I digress...

The first thing that you notice about Titan A.E. is that the animation makes a She-Ra: Princess of Power cartoon look like Fantasia. If you are going to make an animated feature in the futuristic year 2000 that's animated like a 1980s Filmation cartoon, you've got to ease us into it. Have the opening sequence farmed out to a competent animation studio with talented animators, and then gradually make the transition to "By the honor of Grayskull, I have the power!"

For me it was like watching the mouths on a movie that was dubbed into English. At first the crappy animation was amusing, then annoying, then I just got used to it and didn't really notice anymore.

In the opening sequence we meet Generic Blond Character. He's got no real distinguishing features beyond being white and blond, which pretty much ensures that he is going to be the hero and shall make the universe safe for the lesser races. I mean, for the love of the Grand Wizard, did only pretty Arian people make it off the planet? No, no, wait. There's some black folk with double wide noses and Sambo lips whose most valued possession is a soccer ball. What's the matter? Basketballs to hard to draw? How about watermelons? But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Blond and his stupid Generic Clark Gable lookin' father have to escape Earth because it is about to be destroyed by a breed of soft-focused blue computer generated aliens who look like rejects from the cut scenes of a video game. I swear, every time I saw those things with their shoddy animation and their choppy frame rate, all I could think was "Titan A.E.: The Search for Entertainment, available this Christmas for Playstation and PC consoles."

Through some nonsensical voice over, we find out that these Dredge (Actually, since they're aliens, I'll bet it's spelled with a "J". I don't really care enough to look it up. Drej. Hey Gus, does that look like an alien name? Oh yeah, Ernie. That "J" really does it...") want to blow up the Earth and destroy mankind because of the Titan project and "what they fear mankind will become."

Through the whole freakin' movie I thought that the reason would become apparent at some point exactly why the humans developing a cheeseburger shaped spaceship should bring down the all-powerful extra-terrestrial whoop ass.

It doesn't. As far as I can tell, these Drej are just Colgate Cool Mint Gel dickweeds who get their jollies from genocide. If everybody on Earth in the year 3000 is like Blond and friends, I say more power to 'em. Power up the Independence Day death ray effect and waste those mofos and their whole lousy planet.

Fifteen years later, Blond meets up with a mysterious Generic Bearded Character who shows him that the ring his long lost father gave him before abandoning him a decade and a half ago actually has buttons inside and is a complex electronic map, not just a hokey piece of jewelry.

"Gee Bearded, I never noticed those buttons on the inside before. Hmm, you'd think I would, having held on to it for fifteen years and all. Oh well. Hey it's not my fault, they only draw it on me in scenes where it's critical to the plot! It's probably only actually been there for about ten minutes in the past fifteen years."

And what about this cornball rock and roll soundtrack? It's like it wants to be Heavy Metal so badly that it hurts.

But as I said before, Titan A.E. doesn't completely blow. It does have its moments. For me, most of them involve spaceships. Just like Wing Commander wasn't a total loss because it included some all-too-brief space acrobatics, Titan A.E. managed to satiate me with a little clever flying and gunfighting every now and again.

Like this one scene where Blond and Bearded are escaping the Drej, and they fly a small hoverthingie through a closing airlock door, smashing both engines off of the craft and sending the cockpit careening helplessly out into space with a slowly cracking windshield. I love that kind of crap.

Despite all of its faults, this movie could have been a solid four chainsaw candidate had it included more of that kind of spacecraft stunt-show-spectacular action. I mean, everytime I run though a red light I pretend that I'm Lando and that Muppet shooting the Millenium Falcon out of the side of the exploding Death Star like a flaming watermelon seed. But once again, I digress...

I also liked the fact that all of the GOOD aliens in the universe speak English, but only the EVIL ones speak coo-coo alien talk. Not that it mattered, as Blond seemed to be able to read the same subtitles that we were, and always knew what horrible no-contraction-using thing King Drej was saying.

So in the end, is Titan A.E. worth seeing? I would have to go with an emphatic, probably not. It didn't completely eat ass, but it did tie on a napkin and contemplate it.

What the hell? That's all I have to say about the conclusion to Titan A.E.. What the hell.

A) The Titan has the ability to, at the touch of a button, create a planet. Like, in less time that it takes to download a picture of Cindy Margolis, BOOM, there's a new ball of rock eight thousand miles around out of nothing. Sure they make it look like the water comes from the ice field, and in the spirit of suspension of disbelief, I'll even go with that, but what about the land? No sir, I don't buy it. And even if I did, the odds that the darn thing happens to have plunked itself down at the requisite ninety-and-change million miles from the nearest Sol sized star (in order to support those beautiful bottle nosed dolphins they saved to Zip disk) seems chancy. Then again, the fact that the chick with the big beefy legs didn't just kick the crap out of Bearded and the skinny one-eared gay alien at the first sign of trouble is beyond me as well.

B) The Drej fear mankind because of the Titan project. As far as I can tell, the Titan project was designed to make a temporary backup Earth in the event that the original Earth was destroyed. The only reason that the Titan was deployed at all is because those tendony blue a-holes blew up the planet. I'm so confused. It's like a time travel story where somebody goes back in time and kills himself because he's afraid of what he's going to grow up to be. It doesn't make sense, and it just hurts me.

C) If turnabout is fair play, then the characters of Titan A.E. should get special commendations from the Presidential Board of Good Sportsmanship.

Blond - I hate the Earth. What did the Earth ever do for me? Lousy stinking Earth.

Bearded - But the Earth was our home. You've got to love the Earth. Mad props to the Earth, woooo! Raise the roof! Love the Earth, come on, it's your birthday, ride on it...

Blond - Well the Earth should have thought of that before my dad left me. I've got abandonment issues. That asshole had the biggest, most important ship on the whole freakin' planet, and does he let me come with him? No, he puts me on a Greyhound with Tone Loc. I hate Earth. Earth blows.

Bearded - You know what? You're right, the Earth does blow. I'm suddenly going to turn from nurturing and patriarchal to evil and abusive in less time than it takes to make a pan of Jiffy Pop. The Earth is gone, kid, and there's nothing that we can do but sell out to aliens that are so evil that they don't even speak English and then trust that when we help them find the Titan that they'll give us a lot of money of some sort.

Blond - You know what? Screw you and your pure-energy, chicken-bone-lookin' bosses you puppet! I'm gonna save the Earth and there's nothing you can do about it. You suck! I hate you! I love Earth! Earth rocks!

Bearded - You know what kid, you're right, I was wrong. I can't trust the Drej, their name sounds like Dredge which means "Any of various machines equipped with scooping or suction devices and used to deepen harbors and waterways and in underwater mining." How could I have been so naive. The Earth does kick ass. Thank you for enlightening me.

Blond - Well, if you like the Earth, then I hate it. You're always wrong and I'm always right, so if you like the Earth then... wait a second, you're dead. Okay then, I like the Earth. I win. So there, so ha.