‘Mutant Aliens’: An Outer Space Hybrid of High and Low Art

Bill Plympton’s zany, exuberantly irreverent animated space adventure “Mutant Aliens” wastes little time in revealing that its depiction of sex is going to stop just this side of hard-core. It’s an unexpected element and presented with Rabelaisian glee. To be sure, those 14-old-boys who manage to see the film will respond appropriately.

Earl Jensen is a big, rangy astronaut about to be launched into space with much fanfare by Dr. Frubar, a greedy, ambitious rocket ship designer who has a severe blond flattop haircut. Apparently a single parent, Earl bids a tender farewell to his 5-year-old daughter Josie.

No sooner has Earl’s spaceship been launched than Dr. Frubar presses a button emptying Earl’s fuel supply--part of Frubar’s plot to get people to send him money to make space travel safer. In the meantime, the shameless Frubar blames little Josie for having unknowingly flipped that fuel supply switch.

The look of “Mutant Aliens” is light and airy with the tone of watercolors and a free and easy style of minimal sketching. The buoyant feel of Plympton’s graphics reflects the freewheeling spirit of his story, which Plympton adapted from his graphic--perhaps in more than one sense of the word--novel.

Earl finds himself in a series of adventures on an alien planet. He’s greeted by creatures shaped like noses; their queen falls into instantaneous lust with him, but he’s kidnapped by creatures who are fingers with single eyes, who will put him to heroic tests, like a Roman gladiator.

Twenty years later, Josie, now working at an observatory (where she’s distracted by her dim but studly boyfriend Darby), discovers that her father is miraculously on his way back to Earth. Dr. Frubar wants him shot down as a meteorite, but his orders are foiled, so he has no recourse but to give him a hero’s welcome.

At this point, the conflict between the now bearded and shaggy Earl and Dr. Frubar begins in earnest and involves a specific group of aliens, whom Plympton has given the form of such adorable, outsized creatures as a caterpillar, frog, fish, pig, etc.

By the time “Mutant Aliens” has completed its lively journey, Plympton has punctured the traditional notion of aliens posing a danger to humans--it’s more the other way around--and taken some potshots at big business and the excesses of advertising.

Unrated. Times guidelines: The film’s sex sequences rule out it for youngsters.

‘Mutant Aliens’

Dan McComas...Earl Jensen

Francine Lobis...Josie Jensen

George Casden...Dr. Frubar

Matthew Brown...Darby

An Apollo Cinema release. Writer-producer-director-animator Bill Plympton; based on his novel. Cinematographer John Donnelly. Editor Anthony Arcidi. Music Hank Bones, Maureen McElheron. Art supervisors Jennifer Senko, Delphine Burrus, Signe Baumane. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes.

Exclusively at Laemmle’s Fairfax Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 655-4010; and Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 844-6500.