Hollow

Rating: 3/10 (1 April 2010)

Monsters vs Aliens is the exact opposite of Kung Fu Panda. It has no vision, it has no interesting characters, it doesn't look good, and the heroine is quite irritating. It's the kind of movie I wonder how it even got past the script stage. It all feels a bit... random, and not fleshed out at all.
Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) is struck by a meteor on her wedding day to a cocky anchorman. Transformed into Ginormica, she is sealed off in Area 51 by the government, alongside four 'monsters' - a mad scientist turned cockroach, the missing link, a weird gigantic larva, not to mention the "Blob" himself - only his name is Bob. Their help is needed, however, when an alien emperor plans to invade earth.
The premise sounds promising but the execution is all off. Of all the 'monsters' they could think of, they go for those four? They have none of the depth or visual appeal of the characters in Kung Fu Panda. None of the characters appear to have gone through a character design stage at all; they all look quite crude and unimaginative. If this movie had a vision, I'm not seeing it. The plot is very thin and is almost solely held together by gags - which are admittedly quite hysterical at times. But jokes alone don't make a movie. Ever heard of the phrase 'too many cooks spoil the broth'? Well, look no further. What's the point of having many writers if all you're gonna end up with is a mismatched, albeit amusing, hollow shell of a movie? While I enjoyed Monsters vs Aliens a bit more than I thought I would (or should have), it left zero with me. As I watched this movie unfold in the cinema, I couldn't feel any sort of heart to it. It seems Dreamworks learned nothing from their previous film, Kung Fu Panda. What I love about that film is that it's deep and full of substance, and just plain beautiful. I just don't understand how Dreamworks could throw all that out the window. But even the dumbest script in the world can sometimes be saved by just being 'cool' - and this movie doesn't even have enough substance for that. Nothing about this movie attracts me to it. Dreamworks have completely degraded their standard with Monsters vs Aliens, and I hope it's only a temporary setback. I'd rather studios focusing on making movies with more substance than movies that come out of the screen.