Not much to say about MvA. It’s pretty watchable, amusing and funny, but incredibly derivative. You sort of know that going in and the fact that I missed the 3-D showing may skew this review somewhat.
Monsters vs. Aliens feels very much like a high concept movie. Something brewed up in a studio think tank that bounced around for a few years until the “right” creative team was choosen to put it together. There are a lot of writers on this movie and because of that, I think, the movie has a very stripped down feel. Yeah, each monster is a parody of a classic monster: Bob is the Blob, Link is the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dr. Cockroach is the Fly, Susan is the 50 ft tall woman and Insectasaurus is Godzilla.
The basic plot: Susan is about to get married when she’s hit by a meteor. She grows to 50 feet in height and a secret army task force shows up to put her in jail with the “other” monsters. It’s kind of abrupt and there’s no sense of the plan beyond locking poor Susan up. Of course, suddenly, the aliens arrive and the monsters are recruited to fight them. When they win a minor victory early on (spoiler) they are simply freed, which flies in the face of the reason they were put away: to keep them secret from the general public. Just as abruptly, the alien overlord comes and he destroyed his own planet and now wants Earth and Susan’s power. Why? He’s just plain evil, I guess.
Stephen Colbert does a great turn as the president and a few other well known celebrities make their voices known. It’s a pretty fun ride, but could’ve been better, sharper. There’s really no message here and feels a little light on the plot. The ending is satisfying, but it almost makes it feel like an episode of a TV show, rather than a feature.
Overall, an okay theater experience, probably better in 3-D. On cable or rental, it would probably be more worth you buck. I’m going to give Monsters vs. Aliens 6 keggers out of 10. That’s probably lower that most of you would give it, but I’m pretty jaded when it comes to this subject matter.
