After suffering career-ending gearbox damage, Dusty is faced with returning to life as a crop duster. Not wanting to give up his life as a racer, Dusty goes on one last flight to test his limits only to crash into the Propwash Junction airport, starting a fire. The fire, or rather the difficulties in putting it out, is enough to shut down the airport due to a lack of firefighting personnel. Seeing an opportunity for a new career, Dusty volunteers to undergo the necessary certifications to become a firefighter so the airport can reopen.
Dusty travels to Piston Peak National Park where he trains with a fire and rescue crew led by Blade Ranger (Ed Harris), a helicopter, along with a group of all-terrain vehicles called The Smoke Jumpers.
Some of the film’s elements, such as his broken gearbox, create some interesting aspects and story opportunities. Unfortunately, overly clichéd characters and bad, sometimes forced, jokes overshadow any of the film’s loftier ambitions. True, looking for anything larger in a kid-targeted merchandise mover is akin to finding a Frozen character meet-and-greet with a wait time under 2 hours in a Disney Park (hint: It doesn’t exist). Yet, I can show you any number of recent kid-targeted animated films that attempt to push beyond the tried-and-true path.
Planes: Fire & Rescue looks and sounds great on Blu-ray, but even the included DVD and Digital copies hold up really well. In addition to three formats, ensuring kids can watch the movie no matter where they are, the set includes some fun extras for kids to tear through.
First up is a trio of animated shorts. Similar to the Car Toons series, which featured characters from Cars, Vitaminamulch: Air Spectacular, Dipper, and Smoke Jumpers follow characters from the film on misadventures outside of the film. Of the three, Vitaminamulch, which places Dusty in a dangerous air stunt show, is the more entertaining. It is the longest of the three and attempts to tell a more complete story than the other two, which boil down to quick one-off jokes. I found the ChoPs, a silly TV-commercial for a CHiPs parody, and Welcome to Piston Peak far more enjoyable. But, then again, I don’t think many kids will get the CHiPs reference.
The more interesting extra is "Air Attack: Firefighters from the Sky," a short documentary looking at actual aerial firefighters. The short looks at some of the locations inspired by the film, as well as the vehicles used in fighting forest fires.
The cynic in me wants to view Planes: Fire & Rescue as another pipe of money for Disney. Anyone with access to small kids knows the Cars franchise is a money-maker for the company, so a new franchise in the same vein could only mean one thing – dollar signs with wings instead of wheels. A quick walk down the toy aisle would do little to convince anyone otherwise. While the Planes franchise may owe its existence to toy and licensing dollars, I can point to several films and franchises from my childhood that owe the same debt.
It also helps that Planes: Fire & Rescue isn’t a bad picture either. Though it doesn’t compare to films like Frozen, Tangled, or really anything from Pixar (including -- surprisingly -- Cars), it is much better than anticipated. That doesn’t mean it isn’t without its flaws, but older viewers will find some nuggets of humor tucked away in what is ultimately a formulaic movie.
