Meanwhile, when John Lasseter began overseeing Walt Disney Animation Studios, one of his first and most popular acts was to kill off the direct-to-DVD sequels that were pillaging the Disney classic back catalogue in the name of a few easy quid. Furthermore, if Pixar really wanted to do Planes, and expand the Cars world (understandable, given the billions in toy revenue it generates), then why not do it properly? Why not pump some strong investment into it? As it stands, we’ve got Planes, an already-in-the-works Planes 2, and the same ticket price charge you’d get for taking your kids to see Monsters University or Despicable Me 2. Both of which offer much better value. To be fair, Disney has had some success with low-profile Tinkerbell movies heading to cinemas, which hit a young niche before speeding their way to DVD and Blu-ray. I’ve a young daughter, and I duly took her to see the last one. It wasn’t great, but it had charm, a bit of style, and was generally quite good fun. What do they talk about? Well, the mechanics of a plot built on the same sketchpad that contained the planning list for Cars. In this case, instead of the protagonist being cocky, it’s a crop spraying plane who’s lacking in confidence but dreams of racing. There is, naturally enough, a sage old timer to help, everyone laughing at the idea of a crop plane entering a big race, and lots of sage advice being given out, and morals being taught. But there’s what it lacks. It lacks much style. It lacks the energy of the races of the Cars movie. It lacks characters you particularly want to root for. And it lacks a compelling reason to put the Cars Blu-ray away and take youngsters to the cinema to see it. As it stands, Planes is a DVD movie that snuck into cinemas while nobody was watching. Security should be called forthwith. Planes is out in UK cinemas on the 16th August. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.