MONSTERS VS. ALIENS

"SUUUUSSAAANN!, Ooh, I just scared myself!"

For Susan (Witherspoon) and Derek (Rudd), their wedding day was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives but when Susan is hit by a meteorite something strange happens to her just as she gets to the end of the aisle. She suddenly starts to glow green and then grow and grow and grow, until she is almost fifty feet high but as she wreaks the church and the wedding, the Army swoop in and capture her, taking to a secret government facility. Here General W.R. Monger (Sutherland) tells her that she is now part of a super secret programme that has been capturing monsters for fifty years and she now joins The Missing Link (Arnett), Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (Laurie), B.O.B. (Rogen) and Insectosaurus as the captive monsters in the facility. When an alien probe lands on Earth looking for the meteorite that changed Susan into Ginormica, America is powerless as the robot goes on the rampage but the President (Colbert) needs a plan and needs it quick and the answer is Monsters.

DreamWorks has cornered the market in blockbuster, event animated movies filled with star vocal talent and plenty of bangs for your buck but can 'Monsters vs. Aliens' keep up that winning momentum?

When Jeffery Katzenberg set up the animation arm of DreamWorks, film fans were expecting him to recreate his glory years at Disney with classics like 'Beauty and the Beast', 'The Lion King', 'Aladdin' and 'The Little Mermaid' but instead we got 'The Road to El Dorado', 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron' and 'Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas' which never really set the box office alight. It wasn't until 2001 when DreamWorks released the computer generated 'Shrek' that the studio really took off. The followed this hit up with 'Shark Tale', 'Madagascar', 'Over the Hedge', 'Bee Movie' and 'Kung Fu Panda', as well as two more Shrek sequels and a follow up to Madagascar, 'Escape 2 Africa', all of which stuck to the new DreamWorks formula of hiring in big name stars to provide the vocal talent and filling the movie with comedy and big action set pieces to appeal to a young audience but this sometimes came at the expense of the story. This is, of course, were their main competition Pixar Animation Studios excelled and this is why they won the awards and the critical acclaim. While DreamWorks' latest, 'Monsters vs. Aliens' sticks to the formula that has served them so well and has returned huge box office takings in the past but this movie is extremely good.

Following on from the 2008 hit 'Kung Fu Panda', 'Monsters vs. Aliens' concentrates not only on the creation of some lovable and extremely marketable characters but also the story. This is a homage to the 1950s B-Movie. Films like 'The Blob', 'The Fly', 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon', 'Attack of the 50 Woman' and 'Godzilla' help to create the Monsters of the film and then you when you inject an alien invasion you have everything you need for an action adventure with a comedic story thrown in for good measure. Add to this even more in-jokes about everything science fiction and even more at DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg and you have a movie that will appeal not just to a family audience but to a whole new fan base.

As with any animated movie you need to have characters that the audience will instantly content with but you also need the right vocal performance to bring that character to life. In the past DreamWorks has basically cast a big name actor or actress to provide a voice for a character that really just a computer animated, animal version of themselves but this time they have used the Pixar model of picking a suitable actor to bring a character to life. First up we have Susan Murphy, AKA Ginormica voiced by Reese Witherspoon, who we see at the beginning of the movie about to be married to her sweetheart Derek Dietl, voiced by Paul Rudd, when she is hit by a meteorite and is transformed into a fifty-foot tall woman. B.O.B. (Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzonate) is voiced by comic actor of the moment Seth Rogen and it is an indestructible gelatinous mass with one eye and no brain. Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D is a mad scientist who ended up with a giant cockroach head after an experiment went wrong and he is perfectly voiced by Hugh Laurie. The Missing Link is a 20,000-year-old fish-ape hybrid who was found frozen in ice and is expertly voiced by Will Arnett. We also have Insectosaurus, a grub that was transformed in to a 350-foot goliath by radiation that attacked Japan. The monsters then, of course, have to be attacked by Aliens and their leader Gallaxhar is played magnificently by Rainn Wilson and Amy Poehler has fun as the Alien computer. Add to this a brilliantly hammy performance from Kiefer Sutherland as General W.R. Monger, the man who had been keeping monsters secret for fifty years and Stephen Colbert as The President of the United States.

The movie is also the first DreamWorks production to embrace what Jeffery Katzenberg hails as the future of animation, 3D. With all the major animation studios now taking up the new polarised lenses technology that moves the technique on from the old red and blue lenses that were used in the old B-Movies that this film is paying homage to. While there are a few scenes and actions that do push the action out of the screen on purpose but this is more about bringing the viewing into the thick of the action and the thrilling finale is the best example of how good the technology can be to date.

'Monsters vs. Aliens' is a brilliant piece of family entertainment that not only appeals to the kids but will have adults and science fiction fans having just as much fun. With brilliant characters, a very funny storyline and the best use of 3D to date, this continues DreamWorks' new high standard and one that you will hope that they turn into a franchise like 'Shrek', 'Madagascar' and 'Kung Fu Panda' because you really want to spend more time with these Monsters.

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Kung-Fu Panda

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2009