Monsters vs Aliens

With a title so simplistic and a premise that feels like its fit for a lot of fun and inventive scenarios, Monsters vs Aliens is a decently fun movie that is also saddled with a lot of stupid clumsy moments, resulting in an overall picture that is very hard to pin down in terms of quality.  Just before she is about to get married to the man of her dreams, the young-bride-to-be named Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteorite from a alien planet which causes her to grow into a gigantic 50-foot-tall monster. She is kidnapped by the government and placed in a monster quarantine zone that’s off the grid from the rest of the world, and told by General W. R. Monger (voiced by Keifer Sutherland) that she is  to be used as a weapon freak of nature in case the earth is ever in danger and that she will never be able to have her normal life back. She’s put with the other captive creatures, including a talking cockroach scientist named Dr. Cockroach Ph.D (voiced by Hugh Laurie), the Missing Link, otherwise going by Link (voiced by Will Arnett), a sentient blue blob named B.O.B (voiced by Seth Rogen) and an enormous insectoid creature. Things get messy when an evil alien named Gallaxhar (voiced by Rainn Wilson) longs for the meteorite essence that Susan has obtained and sends giant robots to retrieve it, which start to create havoc on the earth. Out of options, President Hathaway  (voiced by Stephen Colbert) allows the monsters to fight the giant robot and offers them freedom if they take it down. Being out of her element, but quickly get used to her powers, Susan learns to work with her new friends, discovers how much her life has changed now that she is big, as well as discovering some hard truths about her fiance, Derek (voiced by Paul Rudd), and upon confronting the alien, finally become comfortable in her new identity. Monsters Vs Alien hasn’t lasted the test of time like other DreamWorks’  film, but it did manage to do critically well and did decently at the box office, so it is very much a mixed bag kind of movie. Very much a B-movie in nature (while containing the expected pros and cons), the movie houses some memorable characters, a few okay laughs, recognizable talent in front of and behind the camera, and some creative action. But on the other hand, a good majority of the humor falls flat, the film jumps around a bit in terms of what it wants to focus on, the animation is hit and miss and there are a lot of amateurish moments.

The film delivers exactly what it promises with its large-scale monster set pieces and its over-the-top goofy nature, and in some areas, it succeeds in delivering them. The story, created by directors Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman, as well as the whole atmosphere surrounding it is very much like the traditional B-movie style, even down to the set-up, the creature’s designs, the music, the environment, the colors, even some of the jokes, it feel like that interesting blend of trying to tell an over-the-top silly flick combined with alien destruction and government chaos that you’d expect in any typical superhero flick. The fact that its animated lends its way quite nicely into the genre and can essentially act as a child’s first introduction into this kind of movie and it does that pretty decently. The script for this movie written by Letterman, along with Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger does get messy in parts in both the comedic and the dramatic elements, but both sides do still get some well-done aspects as well. The premise is very creative and allows for some fun jokes, there are some silly moments, but it doesn’t completely lack emotion, and while not heavy on drama and plot twists, it keeps the plot mostly well structured, never overplaying a single element of the film into the ground and allowing the focus of the film to be on its characters, its inventive premise and action and its comedy. The film does seem a bit confused on what message to deliver every once and a while as it starts to jumble a few too many ideas (most of which don’t really get effective resolutions). It doesn’t feel completely jumbled to the point of being distracting, but it could have used a few bits of tweaking here and chosen what to keep and what to take out. You can understanding the split in terms of quality from the behind-the-scenes talent (Vernon was one of the directors on Shrek 2, whilst Letterman was one of the directors on Shark Tale), there is still enough working to not make it to distracting as an overall picture.

Most of the characters are voiced by very famous comedians, again adding to that feeling of a B-movie, containing a lot of popular actors and using most in minimal side roles. The characters that we have aren’t that bad, but not all of them stand out very well. The strength of the movie is with the main character of Susan. She is a very relatable and likeable lead with how she’s been forcibly transformed into a being that can effectively never have a normal life even though she was perfectly happy and ready to do just that, and Reese Witherspoon does a good job playing the part with just enough hysterical comedy, but also genuine heart to make her really work. The fact that she’s giant adds a fun new perspective to what they can do with action and even the visuals as that not only makes  the separation and isolation from her normal life more apparent, but it also allows for a lot more inventive jokes about using normal day appliances in different ways, like using cars for roller-skates, or easily jumping across buildings like jumping over rocks. Her problems are easily the strongest parts of the film, you genuinely feel bad for her given her situation especially when you find out the truth about her soon-to-be husband and she does a good job carrying this picture. It is clever how each of the other monsters have connections back to real B-movie creatures like Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Blob, Mothra, The Fly and Attack of the 50 Foot Women, and they do work within those parameters as nice homages. Seth Rogen as B.O.B is probably one of the recognizable characters from this film and feels like the one most played-up for kids, and every once and a while, he gets a decent laugh. Dr Cockroach and the Missing Link aren’t very memorable in comparison, as they seem to lack personality and aren’t even that much to work with outside of small scenes, and Hugh Laurie and Will Arnett are funny people and while doing a fine job acting wise, aren’t given too many good lines like the rest of the cast. Stephen Colbert as the president also gets a few good moments, but that’s equaled out with some horrendously painful moments (that stupid scene with the piano that was always played in the trailers is just dumb). Even the diabolical alien gets some good lines and scenes near the end of the film, with Rainn Wilson clearly having fun with his part. The main problems really stem from people like the boyfriend or Susan’s family, who really just feel like they exist to serve a story purpose rather than exist as characters, but they aren’t in the film a lot.

For a comedy, the humor is very split down the middle. Every once and a while there will be a good joke that takes advantage of the set up and cast that they have, but the film is also littered with a lot of lame not very well thought out jokes, some stupid forced lines, and a lot of moments that are either too  juvenile for older viewers or will go right over the heads of the younger viewers, which make sense as some of the writers have worked on very obscure and odd comedies in their work, whilst others have been attached to effective DreamWorks pictures like Kung Fu Panda, and even some were attached to earlier seasons of The Simpsons, so it truly is a wide spread of quality. The animation is also very mixed in terms of quality. The alien and monsters’ designs look pretty good; they all look very distinct and move in unique ways, you can feel the inspiration for each of their designs yet still feel like they stand as their own creation, the fact that Susan is very big allows for some fun angles throughout the film and especially during the action, the aliens look appropriately generic and move just as much, the colors are very nice with a lot of vibrance, and the giant robots feel very large and intimating especially seen from a sky view. The action has some good creative moments, particularly the one in the middle of the film with the giant robot, taking advantage of everyone’s abilities and using their scale to the film’s fullest. The film is composed in a way that really shows off the size of some of these characters and it really feels like your up high during those scenes. DreamWorks really captures flying very well and that is shown in this film with all the air shots, and you do get this kinetic feeling whenever there’s motion occurring, so it has that going for it. However, the human characters look very plastic, the textures look weird, and they look a lot like bobble heads, with the emphasized wrinkles, and giant heads and facial features. It’s obvious the animators were much better at designing grotesque bizarre looking creatures against traditional looking people, which is where most of the focus and even most of the care went into, but it still could’ve be done a little better.  The film does have some obvious moments that were filmed in 3D, leading to some really uncomfortably close shots.

Though very split in terms of quality and really dumb in moments, Monsters vs Aliens may not be a super strong film, but is a decently entertaining one for people to watch. It has some likeable characters, a few funny moments, the set up is fun, the action is entertaining, the colors are nice, and any time a joke falls flat, it’s either follow up with a lot of heart or with a lot of action. True it doesn’t always stay focused, some of the characters are forgettable, and the whole film overall is somewhat jumbled, but it is still a fine film. Nothing much for adults, besides a few of emotional moments and one or two of the jokes, but a fine amount for kids. Check it out and see which side wins the war for you.