When world-famous air racer Dusty learns that his engine is damaged and he may never race again, he must shift gears and is launched into the world of aerial firefighting. Dusty joins forces with veteran fire and rescue helicopter Blade Ranger and his team, a bunch of all-terrain vehicles known as The Smokejumpers. Together, the fearless team battles a massive wildfire, and Dusty learns what it takes to become a true hero.
This movie doesn't really have anything going for it, and yet its actually great. Cool music, bright and expressive animation, fun characters, and nice visuals.
**Disney managed to learn from the mistakes of the first film and give us a better job.**
This film is the predictable sequel to “Planes”, an animated film that Disney released, but which was not as good as one would hope, and wish. Interestingly, I ended up finding it better than the previous film, a sign that the studio, at least, took note of some of the mistakes made. The script starts off quite well, with the protagonist plane unable to compete in races due to a serious breakdown. The course of events ends up opening the door to the solution: becoming a firefighting plane.
The film has one thing that its predecessor sorely lacked: heart. It is a film with much more feeling, more emotions and more beauty. There is not so much adventure, but there is also more sense of danger and risk, with planes fighting fires and taking risks to save other lives, in a beautiful tribute to the work of firefighters and aviators who do this in real life. There is, however, a weakness that the script cannot disguise: the predictability of the story, which works, but which has absolutely nothing new or innovative.
The quality of animations and graphics is still very high, with Disney showing its high knowledge and capacity in the field of digital animation. It's a visually realistic film and, although there is more tension and danger, it's also a more stable film, where we don't have the image as hectic as we did in the first film. Editing and running time are still quite nice and suited to the film that it is, and the soundtrack is more effective and elegant than the first film.
The film has a good team of voice actors who lend their voices to the various animated characters that appear. Dane Cook returns to voice Dusty again, which he continues to do flawlessly; Ed Harris, with a dense and strong voice, was perfect in the character of Blade Ranger. I also enjoyed contributions from Julie Bowen, Teri Hatcher, Wes Studi, Hal Holbrook, and Stacy Keach.
