This Disney sequel to 2013’s “Planes” is a lot like flying coach: serviceable, but not trying that hard. In “Planes: Fire & Rescue,” crop-duster turned racing star Dusty (Dane Cook), plagued by aging equipment, finds himself looking for a slower line of work. The answer comes when his home airport is busted for its firetruck (Hal Holbrook) being outdated and in need of a second firefighter.
Dusty leaves his pals and heads to the Yosemite-like Piston Peak to train with a new crew, headed by Ed Harris as Blade, a cop-show star turned ranger, and his colleague Lil’ Dipper (Julie Bowen), who’s fairly amusing as a stalker-level fan of Dusty and puts the moves on him immediately: “Yep, they’re real,” she boasts when she puts down her landing gear.
Much of the movie, per its title, consists of Dusty & co. putting out fires and rescuing other machines. It’s generic stuff, unless you’re a kid who’s really into playing with toy planes and trains and cars. Then I’ll bet it provides you with some new story fodder and a whole arsenal of toys to demand from your parents. Well played, Disney. Shameless, but well played.
Every now and then, director Roberts Gannaway (“Secret of the Wings”) will throw a bone to the grown-ups, such as the scene in the local dive-bar hangar. “She left me for a hybrid,” groans one auto, throwing back a can of oil. “Didn’t even hear him coming.” A pickup truck makes the ladies roll their eyes with his terrible opening lines. 
Later, a character named Boat Reynolds makes an appearance at a gala: “I loved you in ‘Best Little Boathouse in Texas!’ ” someone yells. And the sequence in which the Piston Peak team first gears up to fight fire is set to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” — meaningless for the under-10 set, but a rocking throwback for us olds.
Ultimately, though, this isn’t about us, and “Fire & Rescue” doesn’t make any pretense that it is. I could go on about how it’s a little depressing that Disney has taken a respectable-if-not-brilliant Pixar movie (“Cars”) and spun it off into other films of diminishing quality, but I think that ship has sailed. Come to think of it, guys, there’s an idea for your next transportation-themed cash grab.