It's also animated. Because Titan A.E. is not live action, the filmmakers have an easier time making the grandiose visions of the screenwriters complete. The glowing blue Drej aliens, the potentially explosive trees, and the massive, detailed battle sequences would lack a lot of their current dazzle in a film with living actors. The opulent delights witnessed here are preferable to cheesy special effects any day.

Battlefield Earth might have benefited from being a cartoon (although John Travolta's performance was rather close), its primary flaw also runs through the new flick, although not as odiously. As penned by Ben Edlund, John August and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from a story credited to Randall McCormick and Hans Bauer, Titan A.E. is not about the typical battle to control the Earth. Instead, it deals with the humans who managed to escape the planet when the Drej destroyed it. Humanity has survived, but its people scattered across the universe. Isolated in various rusty space stations, some people do their best to deny their humanity and look on other people as losers. One such person is Cale Tucker, voiced by Matt Damon. Cale is a young salvage worker who distrusts other humans because his father never kept his promise to reunite after the two fled Earth separately.

Cale may not know it, but he will become the reluctant savior of the remainder of humanity. A friend of his father's named Korso (Bill Pullman) and his feisty pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore) recruit Cale to help locate the Titan, an enormous spaceship Cale's father built. His dad has hidden a map in Cale's hand that allows Cale and his cohorts to find it. Even with these implanted tools along with help from alien sidekicks Preed (Nathan Lane), Stith (Janeane Garafalo), and Gune (John Leguizamo), the task will be arduous. The Drej destroyed Earth because they feared the Titan. Therefore, they would not think twice about exterminating the rest of the human race if the ship were ever located.

Even though the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, Titan A.E. never achieves the gravity it aspires to have. While the credited screenwriters have distinguished themselves in the past, the finished film betrays its written-by-committee origins. There are some clever wisecracks here and there (Cale looks at his still-squirming lunch and longs for the day he can eat something that's already been killed), but the movie is plagued by stock characters, like Lane's self-important but ineffectual Preed. Many of the plot transitions are either telegraphed or too abrupt to be convincing. The story doesn't flow naturally, and some of its elements are shamelessly ripped out of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn and other familiar sources. With all the energy and thought spent on creating visuals, one wishes the story had some of the same effort. The dull rock-and-roll soundtrack is another liability because it doesn't blend with the footage and seems like an afterthought.