Get ready for more adventures in aviation!
Disney's Planes: Fire and Rescue—the follow-up to last summer's box office hit Planes—picks up right where the original left off. This time around, celebrity air racer Dusty Crophopper hopes to become an aerial firefighter!
Dane Cook returns to voice the lead character in the second installment, with Ed Harris, Teri Hatcher, Brad Garrett and Modern Family's Julie Bowen also lending their voices to the sequel.
Although the PG-rated animated release is not catered to adults, critics are unanimous that children will love this latest installment!
The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy writes that the Disney sequel is "nothing more than a Little Engine That Could story refitted to accommodate aerial action and therefore unlikely to engage the active interest of anyone above the age of about 8, or 10 at the most. As always, the Disney name guarantees a certain level of automatic box office, but the audience here is strictly small-fries and their parents."
Entertainment Weekly's Stephan Lee also takes a similar perspective on the kid-friendly flick. "Sure, Pixar's Cars franchise and its aviation spin-off, Planes, are perhaps less stimulating to adults than Toy Story or WALL•E. But it doesn't take much imagination to realize that to lots of 6-year-olds, Planes: Fire & Rescue is pretty much the coolest movie ever."
San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub declares, "Planes: Fire & Rescue" is at its best during the frequent aerial firefighting scenes, which have a storybook feel, while maintaining a disaster-movie-style momentum. The movie is rated PG, but other than a few scenes of planes in peril, it will play well with all but the most scare-prone children in the G crowd."
Forbes' Scott Mendelson calls Planes: Fire and Rescue "refreshing" and states, "It doesn't patronize, and it won't bore parents. But it's almost refreshing in that it doesn't make much of an effort to entertain adults. The key to the film's relative success is the fact that it simply tells its straight dramatic story with a bare minimum of zany comic interludes. There are certain characters intended for comic relief, and maybe a few pop culture references here and there, but Planes: Fire and Rescue is basically a straight drama."