Monsters vs. Aliens

For this year’s “President’s Day Movie Review,” I was looking through some lists, and surprisingly, I found the 2009 DreamWorks movie, “Monsters vs. Aliens” on the list. I had seen a little bit of the film’s beginning, so I checked out the rest yesterday. Now, I will let you know what I thought of it.

Paying tribute to 1950s sci-fi movies through a lens of 21^st Century scope, “Monsters vs. Aliens” jumps out of the screen as an always strong, sometimes engaging imitation of jokes and action.

Hugh Hart said in his review, “Though viewable in conventional 2-D, it's worth the two or three extra bucks to see DreamWorks Animation's stereoscopic cartoon in the format for which it was conceived. The movie was authored in the studio's proprietary InTru 3D, and screened for this review in an IMAX 3D theater. It will also be shown in 2,000 or so RealD-equipped screens around the United States.”

“Monsters vs. Aliens” starts off slow and not really funny as the protagonist, Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) prepares to marry an anchor (Paul Rudd) who wants to cancel their Paris honeymoon so he can audition for a weatherman job in Fresno, California.

Instead, she gets hit by a comet, grows 50 feet tall, and ends up in a secret prison. Here’s where the film begins.

Wanting to return to normal, Susan, now called Ginormica, makes friends with mutant prisoners that could be labeled as the smart one (Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie)), the dumb one (gelatinous B.O.B. (Seth Rogen)) and the action lizard (Missing Link, the half-ape/half-fish mutant (Will Arnett)).

Each has a funny back story, but Rogen’s B.O.B. gets most of the funny lines and also stars in the film’s funniest outsider scene, when he tries to flirt with a bowl of Jell-O.

Released by military manager General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) and a clownish American president (former host of “The Colbert Report” and current host of “The Late Show,” one of my favorite comedians, Stephen Colbert), Susan and her team prevent an alien invasion led by the film’s most persuasive character: Gallaxhar.

Hart credited, “Giving Gallaxhar his melodramatic voice, Rainn Wilson (The Office) channels Flash Gordon-era villainy as the dastardly megalomaniac who happens to be shaped like an airborne octopus.”

Hart continued, “Monsters co-directors Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) and Conrad Vernon (Shrek 2) hew to the big-budget cartoon formula by crafting a solid mix of kid-friendly antics laced with snarky pop culture references.”

A rising score by Hans Zimmer dependent Henry Jackman nudges the adventures whenever the mostly snappy dialogue fails, and the veteran design team clearly knows how to animate a great scene in three dimensions.

Hart said, “Thematically, the heroine's be-who-you-are lesson in self-esteem is hard to argue with, though hardly novel for these kinds of pictures.”

Hart continued, “But it's the action scenes that stand out by milking the 3-D angle for maximum impact.”

Hart goes on, “San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge serves as a backdrop for the monsters' traffic-snarling smackdown with a cyclopic robot. In outer space, a near-mesmerizing March of the Clones set piece achieves epic impact because of the stereoscopic depth of field. Even a suburban subdivision springs to life in a fresh way when giant Susan and friends march through the photorealistic streets of her hometown.”

The mutants end up flying into the sunset on the back of the giant, mute Insectosaurus for what DreamWorks left with the possibility of a sequel, but ended up with a cartoon series. This PG-rated tribute to mid-century science fiction clichés revisits the past to inspire a look of cinema’s 3-D future.

For what it’s worth, this is a good DreamWorks movie for kids. If you haven’t seen it, I say you should because it is funny. This is not a total bore since the jokes are nice, the animation is great, and the story will keep you engaged. I didn’t feel at all bored throughout the runtime. If this is one of those movies that you want to see only once and never again, I get it because I might do that. However, if anyone asks if I want to see it again, I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

Happy President’s Day everyone! Stay tuned Friday when I continue “Sidney Poitier Month.”