Thanks for checking out our Monsters vs Aliens review.
It’s not a big secret that I’m not the biggest fan of CGI animated movies that aren’t created by Pixar (the single best movie production company in the business if you ask me… and not just animated movies either). But last year had a couple of very pleasant surprises. First of all there was Kung Fu Panda which was a LOT more entertaining than I thought it would be… and then there was Bolt, which in my opinion was the most underrated movie of the year. Two non-Pixar animated films that were good in the same year… who would have thought?
So along comes Monsters vs Aliens. This is a movie that’s been getting a lot of online buzz for almost a year now. A catchy title will do that I guess. So did it deserve any of the modest hype is was getting? Well… actually…. yeah. It kinda did.
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for Monsters vs Aliens reads something like this: “On her wedding day, Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteorite infused with Quantonium, a rare and powerful element that causes her to grow to an enormous size. Targeted by the government as a monster, Susan is captured and imprisoned at a secret facility where other such oddities are being held, including Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist who accidentally transformed himself into a roach-human hybrid, B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a gelatinous, brainless mass brought to life in an experiment gone wrong, The Missing Link (Will Arnett), a Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon-like lizard man, and the skyscraper-sized mutant larvae Insectosaurus. When deranged alien overlord Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) arrives on Earth to obtain the precious Quantonium and conquer the world, President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert) offers the monsters their freedom in exchange for defeating the evil mastermind and his legion of robots and clones.”
THE GOOD
One of the things that CGI animated films have still not really mastered is the art of making an action sequence actually look and feel exciting. Oh from time to time a movie will pull it off, but not often. With Monsters vs Aliens however, they seem to be able to strike the right note. Everything from the chases to the fights, the actions sequences (there’s more action than I thought there would be too) are a lot of fun and legitimately had me leaning in my seat.
This is a funny movie. Not an outright hilarious movie… but pretty funny. Frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing Seth Rogan’s voice in seemingly every other animated film or character out there… but as the blob like creature named B.O.B. his voice was the perfect fit which added to the humor of the situations. As a matter of fact, almost all the characters worked on a comedic level.
There are a lot of tributes in this movie to the old school monster films of ages past which all worked for me. I’m not sure about how well they worked on the average 9 year old siting in the audience… but for me and the other adults in the cinema it was gold.
THE BAD
Since I’m not a parent, nor brought any kids with me to the theater, I’m not sure why this next part bothered me so much, but it did. There is a scene in the movie (possible MINOR spoiler) that shows two young people “parked” in the woods. The only thing is, there’s a bit of a gender role reversal going on with you young woman trying to get the young man to “put out” and the young man doesn’t want to. Ha ha… it’s a cute idea… but for a kids movie?!?!?! The girl in the scene was also being pretty aggressive in trying to get the guy to fool around. This whole thing just sat wrong with me. There were tons of little kids in there, and the movie seemed to deal with it in a very un-kid like manner. I could see some parents uncomfortable with the scene. It wasn’t needed in the movie at all and I wish it wasn’t there.
Susan’s fiancee Derek (voiced by Paul Rudd) was a waste. He was just annoying. And I don’t just mean in the way that the film MEANT for him to be annoying. The entire little side plot of Susan yearning for her jerk of a fiancee back added little to nothing to the movie… provided little to none of the laughs… and as previously mentioned, was just annoying to watch.
OVERALL
Monsters vs Aliens is an entertaining little films with some likable and cute characters, some good laughs and surprisingly exciting action. Some questionable content, and a couple of annoying characters aren’t enough to ruin any enjoyment you should get from this film. Overall I give Aliens vs Monsters a 7 out of 10.
