featuring the voice talents of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Hugh Laurie, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, and Stephen Colbert
directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon
written by a bunch of people
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Disney fan. Anyone who knows me knows that I typically despise Dreamworks films. They lack heart, they lack soul, and they get all their humor from pop culture references. Last year's Kung Fu Panda was moderately successful (review), but it still fell apart at the end. With Monsters vs. Aliens, Dreamworks is continuing to improve...although they definitely haven't reached Pixar's quality level yet.
When a meteorite with special unearthly powers lands on Susan (voiced by Witherspoon) on her wedding day causing her to grow to gigantic proportions, she is seized by the government and placed in a holding tank with four other monsters -- a blob named Bob (Rogen), a man/cockroach (Laurie), a Creature from the Deep (Arnett), and a giant furry insect. A friendship develops between them all, and, this being a kid's film and all, they come together despite their differences and fight the evil alien invader Gallaxhar (Wilson) who desires to destroy Earth.
There is very little story here. In fact, the whole story is in that paragraph above. And while the film tried to develop the characters (especially Susan), it fell flat...although Witherspoon's vocals were engaging.
There is definitely humor in this one that does not stem from the pop culture variety (although there are a few of those jokes here and there). I am utterly sick of Seth Rogen as a one-note actor, but he was hilarious here (well, his voice was hilarious). Kiefer Sutherland's General W.R. Monger also provided quite a few laughs. I guess the problem is that even though I laughed quite a bit (a lot, really, when comparing it to other Dreamworks films), there's not enough story to connect those laughs. It's like watching a stand-up comedian and only laughing at every third joke. You feel like it's good when you're watching it, but when you really think about it, you realize that you feel like you didn't quite get your money's worth.
Still, the film is Dreamworks' best effort ever and is certainly worth a look.
But...it's certainly NOT WORTH A LOOK in 3D. There is no reason to shell out the extra bucks and see this in the 3D format. There is an incredibly corny 3D effect at the beginning that I literally rolled my eyes at, but after that, there is very minimal 3D-ness to this film. Unlike other films I've seen in 3D, there's very little depth to this one either. If you decide to see this in a theater, there's no reason to see it in 3D. I can't imagine this 3D "fad" lasts if companies keep putting out films with lackluster effects.
The RyMickey Rating: C+
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