Review: Cosmicrew: Ice Planet is an ideal plane movie

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, when I take a flight that has seatback screens and a swathe of entertainment options available to watch, there will be at least one (1) animated movie available to watch that I've never heard of. It's usually Chinese. On my early morning flight to Chicago today, this maxim once again proved true, though there were three (3) movies that fit the bill. My plan to immediately go to sleep was replaced by a need to watch at least one of them, a colorful action-adventure called Cosmicrew: Ice Planet.

It is very hard to find stills from this movie online…

(Side bar: I wish there were a way to subscribe to airlines' movie collections as a streaming service. It's honestly incredible how good the selection always is: a great mix of all-time classics, a ton of new releases, a smattering of interesting-looking international fare that is otherwise unavailable to watch anywhere. A guy can dream.)

I'm typing this review on my phone without internet access, so forgive any typos, weird style things, or bits of wrong guesswork, as I can't Google anything at the moment. 

Cosmicrew has the feeling of being part of a franchise, where we're joining a team in media res as they go about their business. In this case, that business is taking part in an immersive test simulation that tasks the crew with capturing a dinosaur. If they succeed, they'll be granted state-of-the-art new gear. If they fail, they'll need to wait ten years for another go. Failure is, obviously, not an option. 

The team consists of four members. Storm is a blue tiger and the team's main muscle, wielding a giant hammer. Rainbow is a wise supporting healer-type, a rabbit with a wand that shoots bubbles that can either protect or capture, or sometimes attack. She shoots so many bubbles during the course of this movie. Flash is a monkey, known for his speed and skill with various weapons. And Meteor is a pig and a mechanical genius, who wears a pack that has extendable arms that punch, grab, tinker, a la Doctor Octopus. 

Meteor is the de facto main character, as his missteps cause the team to fail the test (spoiler alert) and generally cause trouble for them otherwise. He has great potential, and the support of his crew, but he still messes up a lot. So much, in fact, that even the public doesn't care for him. Everyone else gets fan mail except for him. People regularly tell him to his face that he doesn't belong on the Cosmicrew. Fandoms are brutal!

But Meteor gets the chance to hone his skills and prove himself over the course of this movie, in which the gang faces off with the nefarious duo of Thunderbolt the dinosaur and Dr. Sunny the sabre-toothed mouse (or maybe rat or bat -- unclear). These villains have learned that there was a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth, which is very appealing to Thunderbolt. And Dr. Sunny, I think, is in love with Thunderbolt and will do anything to make him happy. So they set off for Earth to send three planet back to the Ice Age and then revive the dinosaurs. 

I don't know why the plan involves those two steps. When they arrive on Earth, one of the first things they do is un-freeze some dinosaurs to help them (albeit, a recently-arrived band that landed and got frozen mere days before). The Ice Age presumably wasn't a great time for dinosaurs, so why make the world colder when you want the dinosaurs to no longer be frozen? It defies logic. 

Anyways, the Cosmicrew is here to save the day. They kind of have a Power Rangers vibe going on, with their color-coded suits of armor and transforming mechs. The action scenes are fun -- kind of slow and clunky (like the movie in general) but with some fun choreography and cool weapon/suit designs. I kept wondering if there was going to be some reveal that this is secretly somehow based on Journey to the West, what with there being a monkey and a pig on the team, but it doesn't seem to be the case. This is just a wonky little bit of sci-fi adventure with a cute cast of characters and a desire to teach young viewers to keep trying and to support each other. 

There were a couple extra points of clunkiness that I think stem from watching this on a plane, though it is an ideal airplane movie. The subtitles were pretty rough, with a lot of odd syntax and poor grammar. Never to the point of being indecipherable, but often to the point of making me grin. The sound also was a bit odd, with some scenes feeling aurally sparse, like the file couldn't manage to conjure character voices, music, and sound effects all at once. During some big set piece moments, I could only hear characters yelling. Kind of funny. These gripes didn't affect my enjoyment of the movie, but I think they're worth mentioning.

In general, I was just really happy watching this movie. Sometimes you want to watch something kind of bad and unchallenging and fun, and Cosmicrew: Ice Planet is all those things. It feels like I discovered a rare diamond while flying thriving the sky, then realized it's actually just a lump of cubic zirconium. Which, hey, is still pretty nice to look  at.