Review of “Monsters v Aliens”
Young bride-to-be Susan Murphy (Reece Witherspoon) should have paid closer attention to old wives tales. No sooner did fiancé Derek (Paul Rudd) get a look at her in her bridal dress than a stray asteroid crashes to earth and knocks her flying. As the pair take their vows, Susan begins mutating into a giantess and is captured and imprisoned by the government in a facility that is so secret its warden calls it ‘an X-File wrapped in a cover-up and deep-fried in a paranoid conspiracy.’ Here she meets her fellow detainees, monsters The Missing Link (Will Arnett), Dr Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) and B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), and in the government facility they while away their time until, at their wits end, the government calls on them to help battle alien threat Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson).
Animations from the houses of Dreamworks (home of Shrek and Madagascar) and Pixar (of Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc) have hit such a level of sophistication that you know upon taking your seat exactly what you might expect. Firstly, a self-referential and pop-culture aware screenplay. Monsters vs Aliens has this in spades, referencing a slew of 50s B-movies including The Blob and Attack of the 50 ft Woman, as well as the vernacular of the contemporary geek. There are laughs aplenty, and while I found myself smugly patting myself on the back for picking up references obscure and ironic (“Here comes the bride!” screams one wedding guest in terror as the giant Susan tears the church apart), the young family in front of me had a whale of a time guffawing at the pratfall and slapstick comedy.
There is the voice work from the all-star cast, which additionally includes Stephen Colbert as the US President, Kiefer Sutherland, Amy Poehler, and Renee Zellweger. Kudos especially to an effervescent reading by Reece Witherspoon, whose Susan is a figure for us to all identify with. Then there is the animation, which is superlative, as expected. I came out of the film a little under-whelmed by what amounted to a pretty uninspired plot. But an uninspired Dreamworks animation with flawless execution is still better than ninety percent of the other films on the screen at present.
Adding to the overall enjoyment was watching the film in 3D. Despite the hefty admission price, it adds to the excitement of the film’s many battle scenes between monster and alien.
CK
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