HAVE you ever had a flight that was not particularly bad, but not very exciting either? An OK trip where your travel over the skies rated only halfway on the fun meter, especially after the food they served wasn’t particularly savoury, the in-flight movie was an amusing distraction you had already seen, and the cute girl seated next to you was a little too sleepy to talk?

Well, that’s a little like what Disney’s new 3D animation comedy, Planes, is like. This first film in the new trilogy is an average trip if you are looking to pass the time, especially if you have already gotten some mileage out of Pixar’s Cars films, of which Planes is a spin-off.

Planes tells us a familiar story. It features Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook), a crop-duster plane, who has big dreams. Rather than do dull work at the cornfields, Dusty wants to become a racer plane, and in his spare time practices complicated manoeuvres so that one day he can be a champion.

After Dusty enters the qualifiers of the ‘Wings Across the World’ competition, the audience laughs at him because he is only a crop-duster and not a race plane, but Dusty shows that where there is a will, there is a way, eventually qualifying.

Here, Dusty is taken under the wing of an old warplane named Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach), who reluctantly decides to become Dusty’s mentor, training the ambitious crop-duster for racing. But Riley soon discovers that Dusty has a secret, a secret that is particularly embarrassing for a plane — Dusty is afraid of heights!

After Dusty’s training is complete, he is off to races, where he meets his new best friend, an odd Mexican race-plane named El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui). Dusty’s new friend keeps his spirits flying high, especially after he is ditched by Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith), who happens to be an arrogant three time winner. Here, Dusty’s engine really starts humming when he falls in love with Ishani (Priyanka Chopra), the Pan-Asian champion from India. Unfortunately for Dusty, Ishani breaks his heart by betraying him, when she deliberately gives him bad advice during a race in India. This only makes Dusty more determined than ever to win the championship!

Planes isn’t particularly memorable in terms of animation, where it looks slightly inferior to the films in the Cars franchise. This could perhaps be because the film was originally slated to be a direct-to-video release, and was made on a lower budget. Planes is also fuelled by a few laughs along the way. That being said, it certainly isn’t worth more than one trip!