Not Intended To Be Taken Seriously  And That's a Good Thing!

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2009)

Monsters vs. Aliens is a lot of low-key fun, as a small group of pretty easy-going "monsters" are released from decades of secret imprisonment by the government and, evidently bearing their erstwhile captors no ill will, help the US ("the only country where flying saucers ever seem to land") fend off an invasion from an evil alien overlord. The invasion comes in 2 stages: 1st a gigantic robotic probe that our heroes battle on the Golden Gate Bridge, and 2nd the archfiend Gallaxhar himself and his army of not very perceptive clones. A 4-eyed squid descendant, he's the sole survivor of his late planet, but he assures Susan, the 49'11"- tall woman, that she needn't feel sorry for him, since he destroyed it himself.
You might think that a woman of that height would dominate every scene she's in, but animation isn't limited in scale, and the folx at Dreamworks weren't just thinking big, they were thinking HUGE! Susan isn't even the largest of Earth's monsters; that would be the 350'-tall childlike Insectosaurus.
You might also think it would be a challenge to make the monsters (especially Dr. Cockroach and the slimy Missing Link) engaging and endearing, but Pixar showed the way back in 2001 with Monsters Inc., and this production is up to those standards in terms of both personality and technology. And the dimwitted but good-natured BOB the Blob is just a hoot.
The whole thing is played for chuckles, and they come at a nice, easy pace, not forced or frenetic. There are some good visual gags, too, including the president's big red coffee- dispensing button on the wall of the war room and BOB's romance with the lime Jell-O.
I saw it in 3-D (tho not in Imax 3-D) and thot it enhanced the experience.
I have lots more to say about 3-D (and I also lament the demise of voice acting as a career), but there's a limit on these IMDb entries, so I refer you to my blog for the rest of my thots on these subjects:
http://richardsrussell.livejournal.com/2009/03/28/