Release Date – 3/27/09
Susan Murphy is preparing for her wedding day. Everything is going great until she’s hit with a meteorite and grows super big and super strong. She is whisked away to a secret government facility where she will be hid from the general public for her entire lifetime. While there she meets other “monsters”. One is a genius scientist who mixed his DNA with that of a cockroach to become Dr. Cockroach. Another is an arrogant sea monster known as The Missing Link. Then there’s a gelatinous blob known as B.O.B. And finally a HUGE insect known as Insectosaurus. When an alien decides to invade Earth, the monsters are called upon to save the planet. It’s a decent movie. Kids will love it and the animation looks great. But it doesn’t match up well against Pixar stuff like Wall-E in terms of story and even comedy.
This movie has an all star voice cast. Susan is voiced by Reese Witherspoon. BOB by Seth Rogen. The Missing Link by Will Arnett. Dr. Cockroach by Hugh Laurie. Gallaxhar the alien by Rainn Wilson. And then there’s also Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, Paul Rudd, Jeffrey Tambor, Amy Poehler, Ed Helms, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, and more. They really went all out for even the smallest roles. DreamWorks always gets a ton of actors to do voicework in their movies, eventually it gets overloaded like the Shrek movies did by the time the third one came along. But the small doses in this one worked out well. Some of the voices you wouldn’t even recognize at first. They really went over the top on a few (i.e. Kiefer and Rainn).
The story is cutesy but also seemed very rushed. The movie is only 80 minutes long so it gets right to the point quickly. Susan becomes Ginormica within the first 10 minutes. Then we meet the other monsters for 20 minutes or so. Then its all about the battles. There’s a cool fight scene with a big alien robot which made the final battle pretty lackluster in comparison. Also I didn’t really find myself laughing out loud too much. I got a few chuckles but its definitely directed at a younger audience. I know that’s the point but sometimes movies like Shrek and Wall-E hit the adult audience without taking away from what they bring to the kids. I feel like Monsters vs. Aliens couldn’t do that as well. Although, I was surprised they didnt really rely on pop culture references in order to get laughs. So anyway, if you have kids this is a must see because they’ll love the crazy characters and I’m sure the toys will be flying off the shelves. If you’re just a fan of animated movies then you can wait. You won’t have to worry about missing anything great.
IMDB – 7.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 70%
Movie Wiseguys – 6/10