Monsters vs. Aliens

Plot synopsis:
A few minutes before her wedding to Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd), a TV weatherman, Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteorite. The meteorite is infused with quantonium, a rare and powerful element that causes her to grow -- just as she begins to recite her vows -- to an enormous size. Targeted by the government as a monster, Susan is captured and imprisoned at a secret facility where other such oddities are being held, including Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist who accidentally transformed himself into a roach-human hybrid; B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a gelatinous, brainless, but talkative mass brought to life in an experiment gone wrong; the Missing Link (Will Arnett), a Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon-like lizard man; and the skyscraper-sized mutant larva Insectosaurus. Their jailer is General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland).
When deranged alien overlord Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) comes to Earth to obtain the precious quantonium and conquer the world, U.S. President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert) offers the monsters their freedom in exchange for defeating the evil mastermind. They're turned loose in San Francisco and Gallaxhar's giant robot quickly fixates on Susan. It corners her on the Golden Gate Bridge. Thanks largely to Susan's amazing strength and determination to keep anyone from being hurt, the monsters are able to destroy the robot.
Susan takes her monster friends to visit her parents, but they frighten all the neighbors at the backyard barbecue. Derek doesn't attend. When Susan seeks him out, he breaks up with her; it's apparent that all he cares about is his career, and he doesn't think a 50-foot wife will help him move into larger markets. Susan quickly realizes that she's better off without Derek, and that she likes her new self, her new abilities, and her new friends. She rejoins the other monsters only to be snatched up into Gallaxhar's spaceship. Insectosaurus is felled when it tries to help her.
Despite Susan's brief escape and determined resistance, Gallaxhar extracts the quantonium from Susan's body and she returns to her original dimensions. The quantonium is key to Gallaxhar's evil plan to take over the world: it enables him to create legions of clones, who march around in formation saying "Hail Gallaxhar!" Meanwhile, the surviving monsters have snuck aboard to help Susan. They send the ship into self-destruct mode. Only Susan makes it out of the engine room before the doors close; Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B., and the Missing Link, stuck inside, insist that she escape without them. But Susan is made of tougher stuff than that; she goes back to Gallaxhar and tries to make him abort the self-destruct and release her friends. When Gallaxhar tries to escape, Susan regains possession of the quantonium and becomes a giant again. After she frees her friends, they're all rescued from the self-destructing ship by General Monger and Insectosaurus, who wasn't dead after all -- just busy metamorphosing into a moth the size of a 747.
Before Susan and the monster squad are called away to save another day, there's a big celebration during which Derek tries to interview Susan. She spurns him and allows B.O.B. to swallow him and spit him out, a career-killing moment that Susan makes sure will be caught on camera.Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteorite on the day of her wedding to weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd), absorbing a substance called quantonium and growing into a giant. Alerted to the meteorite crash, the military arrive and capture Susan. She is labeled a monster, renamed "Ginormica" by the government, and sent to a top-secret prison facility headed by General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) and containing other monsters: B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a brainless, indestructible gelatinous blob; Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist with the head and abilities of a cockroach; the Missing Link (Will Arnett), an amphibious fish-ape hybrid; and Insectosaurus, a colossal grub that is even larger than Susan. The monsters are forbidden to have any contact with the outside world; while the other monsters have been living contentedly with this lifestyle for the past 50 years, Susan feels incredibly isolated and wishes to return to her old life.
An alien named Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) detects the quantonium radiation emanating from Earth and deploys a gigantic robotic probe to find it and extract it from its source, Susan. After a botched attempt by the President of the United States (Stephen Colbert) to make first contact with the robot, it begins destroying everything in sight, resisting all conventional military force used against it. General Monger convinces the President to use the monsters to fight the robot instead. The monsters accept the mission with the promise of freedom if they succeed. Arriving in San Francisco, Susan is chased by the robot across the city to the Golden Gate Bridge, where the monsters are able to defeat the robot, Susan and Insectosaurus keeping it occupied while Dr. Cockroach sabotages it from inside and B.O.B. clears a path for the cars to evacuate (The Missing Link having been knocked out during the fight).
Now free, Susan returns to her hometown and introduces her family and friends to the monsters, who are quickly rejected after innocently causing a panicked ruckus in the neighborhood. Derek, meanwhile, breaks up with Susan, claiming that he can't be married to someone who could overshadow his career. Initially devastated, Susan realizes that becoming a monster has improved her life, and fully embraces her new friends and lifestyle. Suddenly, she is abducted by Gallaxhar, who apparently kills Insectosaurus when he tries to save her. On Gallaxhar's spaceship, Susan breaks loose and chases Gallaxhar down, only to enter a machine that extracts the quantonium from her body, shrinking her to her normal size. Gallaxhar proceeds to use the quantonium to power a machine which clones him into an army so he can invade Earth.
With assistance from General Monger, B.O.B., Dr. Cockroach, and the Missing Link infiltrate Gallaxhar's spaceship, rescue Susan, and hot-wire the spaceship's power core, activating the spaceship's self-destruct sequence. However, during their escape attempt, Susan is cut off from her friends, who are trapped in the power core and tell her to save herself. Instead, Susan confronts Gallaxhar, who tries to escape with the quantonium, and attempts to force him into releasing her friends. When Gallaxhar says he cannot reverse the sequence, Susan takes the quantonium back and absorbs it, restoring her to her gargantuan size and allowing her to save her friends. The monsters leap out of the exploding spaceship and are rescued by General Monger on the back of the revived Insectosaurus, who had sealed his body in a cocoon and transformed into a giant butterfly.
The monsters receive a hero's welcome upon their return. Derek attempts to get back with Susan for the sake of interviewing her, which could benefit his career; instead, Susan rejects him and forces him to endure the humiliation of being thrown into the air and caught, swallowed and spit out by B.O.B. on camera. At that moment, the monsters are alerted to a monster attack near Paris and fly off to combat the new menace. [D-Man2010]

Tags: psychedelic, cute, entertaining

Review:
I'm tempted to describe this movie as "innocent," because it's such a nice story that doesn't have all the innuendos some other animated films have, yet still will make most adults laugh in many spots because there is some good humor that kids wouldn't get.
"Monsters Versus Aliens" shows one doesn't need "edginess" in every movie to have adults enjoy the kids' film, too.Chances are you'll find this movie a lot better than you thought.
The government has secretly collected these monster and now they need them to fight alien Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson).DreamWorks has gathered all the iconic 50s sci-fi B-movie creations, and formed a pretty cohesive team.
Aliens is also a family film in the truest sense: Elders to tots can enjoy the visual delights of 3-D outer space and observe a young bride-to-be Susan Murphy (voice of Reese Witherspoon) grow by a radiation accident into the heroic role of Ginormica, a woman literally too big for her britches.
She must assert her independence from a self-centered fiancé and convince family, friends, and the world that an out-sized woman (read overachieving feminist) has a place in the male world, a superior place at that.A strength of this sweet film is its use of ironic, sometimes sardonic, language to satirize just about everyone, from the president (see the opening quotation, not great humor but entertaining) to the makers of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, whose feel good '70's glow is ripe for 21st-century cynicism, to memories of such chestnuts as The Blob and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.The hip,loving mood of the film is exemplified by the alien's proclamation at invasion time, "Humans of Earth, my quest has led me to your planet.
Add to that the fun and oddball personalities of the monster characters and you have a winning combination.The 3D effects were good, although like most other mainstream animated movies - they start out strong and then get recessed into background.
Monster versus Aliens is a sometimes funny and sometimes interesting, but mostly the story is dull and the plot is nearly a non-entity.However, this movie does take 3D to a new level at times.
There's really only one obvious 3D "gag" very early in the movie, but other than that, you are just in awe of seeing these animated characters truly come to life like never before.The character that steals the show is of course BOB (voiced by Seth Rogen) He is incredibly dumb but also fantastically funny and the most interesting of all the monsters.
Everything here worked to a perfect T, from the very key component of animation, to voice casting, and sound, but what the film ultimately lacked, was a compelling narrative, and soul.The premise for success is all there, and as seen in the trailer, there's a pretty good balance of comedy, action, and homage to the 50s and 60s horror and sci-fi genres.
Even kids aren't tickled by the usual juvenile antics of the characters anymore, which now calls for a shift in sophistication.A whole host of stars join the lineup, such as Rainn Wilson as the villainous alien Gallaxhar, Stephen Colbert as the dim-witted President Hathaway, Amy Poehler as a computer voice and even Renee Zellweger, but despite the star power going all round in flesh out the carefully designed and crafted animated characters, ultimately everyone was one-dimensional and playing to their stereotypical tendencies.
In fact, there are only two main fight scenes and neither manages to make the movie worth while.The whole movie revolves around Susan (the woman who grows into a giant after getting hit by a meteor) and her issues rather than around the much more fun idea of monsters fighting aliens.
A waste of a good idea.Maybe kids will enjoy this generic CGI film, but even my siblings (ages 6, 10, and 13) didn't like this movie.
The latest effort from Dreamworks Animation is among their best efforts to date and, for the first time, I see them stepping ahead of Pixar.What a better set-up for an animated film than Earth when it is about to be invaded by a squid-like alien with his fair amount of bad eyes and his army of clones?
One may wonder where is the Giant Killer Tomato or the Invisible Man but this handful of monsters are enough to nullify the Alien menace.The movie itself is pure enjoyment: Colbert as the President is hilarious, Laurie is an excellent mad scientist and I could not point a single flaw in the cast but, it is definitely Seth Rogen who shines voicing BOB, the inform mass of gelatinous goo.
Ultimatelty the success of the film lies with  the voice cast which includes Reese Witherspoon as Susan (later  forcefully renamed Ginormica) Seth Rogen as the blathering B.O.B.,  House's Hugh laurie as Dr. Coachroach, Will Arnett as The Missing Link,  Kiefer Sutherland as the steely General W.R. Monger, Rainn Wilson as  the evil alien Gallaxhar and finally Stephen Colbert as the dimwitted  President of the U.S.
This film had the promise of being really funny with a great line up of talented actors such as Kiefer Sutherland, Seth Rogen, Reese Witherspoon and Hugh Laurie (all talented Actors) and produced by DreamWorks.Unfortunately the laughs were quite tame and even for mid aged kids they weren't very funny, being more for 4-9 age group.
I have to admit I had some enthusiasm for watching Monsters vs Aliens because,in spite of the horrible state of animation cinema in Hollywood (with a few exceptions,of course),I thought it would be fun to see a movie obviously inspired by various fantastic cinema movies from the 50's,like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,The Blob,The Fly or The Creature of the Black Lagoon.However,the movie resulted to be hollow and boring,with over the top moments of comedy (which do not result funny) which change ingenuity for noisy action.This very weak movie may satisfy to very little children,but the ones who want to see animation cinema of the best quality should look anywhere else (like,for example,some Japanese movies like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke).As it could be expected,the references to the sci-fi genre in this movie go beyond of the name of the characters,and although I appreciated the mention of Red Dwarf,E.T.,Star Trek,Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a long etcetera of famous works from the genre,I did not feel them as honest tributes,but as condescending tricks to ingratiate a certain group of spectators...and to suggest they are not copying concepts and situations,but innocently playing tribute to those works.The cast of voices made a decent work,although nobody stood out too much.On the animation field,I found the design from the monsters pretty disparate.I understand the intention of making them sympathetic and not frightening (although this last thing would have worked much better),but they do not seem to belong to the same visual scheme from the movie.Besides,it seems that they were created by artists who had very different concepts about the tone and nature from the story.The main point is that that attitude destroys the basic idea from the movie,which is : "never judge the people from their appearances,but by their actions".On many aspects,Monster vs Aliens reminded me of the sequence from Toy Story (or was it Toy Story 2?) in which the monster toys help the heroes.The animators from that movie were not too shy with the design,because they comprehended that making the monsters too sympathetic would kill force to the message.But,after all,what could I expect from DreamWorks?
The good will they had won with Shrek was extinguished after producing craps like Shark Tale,Madagascar and its sequel and,specially,the execrable Bee Movie.I respect that the dramatic scheme from DreamWorks does not try to copy the one from Pixar (which is obviously superior) and I understand their sensibility,which is more commercial and less artistic.I just do not respect the complete lack of narrative ambition from almost all of their movies.Monsters vs Aliens is another very mediocre animation movie which commits the fatal mistake of being boring..
Reese Witherspoon is wonderful as Susan Murphy, while 24's Kiefer Sutherland gets a rare chance to flex his comedic muscle as backwoods general W.R. Monger.The Office's Rain Wilson is fine as Galaxar (the evil alien), as is Arrested Development's Will Arnett as The Missing Link and House's Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach.
Reese Witherspoon, that unfunny actress that acted in Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2 comes and acts in Monsters VS Aliens, a movie that sounds like it will be tons of fun and will have heaps of laughs and (family) action scenes.
If you have read my review on Kung Fu Panda, you'll know that it's a true fact Dreamworks have started working on animation for quite some time now since 11 years ago in 1998, that includes their first computer animated movie Shrek and then from where on there, they give us unforgettable moments and fun but very lovable characters to watch.But, as the more we get into CGI and much less of traditionally hand drawn animation in the 21st century, our love for animated movies might of wear out; and then there's Monsters Vs. Aliens.To start off, let's just say I thought Shark Tale and Bee Movie was better before I saw this, not that I'm complaining but it needs a little bit more work.
The film starts off with a beautiful young woman named Susan Murphy play by the wonderful loving Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon, getting married to a weather reporter young man from the news named Derek Dietl play by Paul Rudd who you might recognize his work from I Love You Man, Role Models, and Knocked Up. He's not a very hard guy to spot if you're familiar with the voice in this movie.Their wedding goes out fine before she gets hit by a meteor and grows into a 49 foot giant size monster named Ginormica (Funny name if you ask me).
A green swimming monster (can't remember what type he was suppose to be) called The Missing Link (whose voiced by Will Arnett who also was in Horton Hears a Who with Seth Rogen) and of course a human scientist with the size of a cockroach head named Dr. Cockroah Ph. D (voiced by Hugh Laurie who is quite known for his role of that crazy thriller horror show House) Their world suddenly becomes in huge danger when a four eyed alien from outer space plans to take over the world so it's up to Susan (aka Ginormica) and her new friends to save the day!
It's the kind of writing that is not only targeted at children, but consistently feels like it was written by them; unsurprisingly, the little ones will get some kick out of it all, but for everyone else (and I include some of the more discerning of children in this exception), Monsters Vs. Aliens will instead only mildly distract with its pretty pictures and sporadically amusing farce.What's most surprising about the extremely derivative writing present within the movie's script however, is that it comes directly from chaps involved with quite a few of the genre's most enjoyable and original outings.
Not only is it frustrating to be forced to artificially root for a protagonist we're never really given a chance to care about (that's Susan by the way, played by a bland Reese Witherspoon), but there is also a distinct lack of comic relief to the whole thing—in fact, the best parts to Monsters Vs. Aliens aside from Colbert's brief appearances, are all the cool space shots and action sequences.This of course, brings us to the primary reason many people will be seeing the feature in the first place; the 3D.
Yet for the good that it does for the movie's aesthetic appeal however, the overall impression is that without such an artificial distraction, Monsters Vs. Aliens would be a banal and flat affair.The problem is that despite the awe-inducing animation and sometimes amusing performances, the majority of the feature is actually devoid of any life.
I have to admit that I was thrilled by the overall concept and while it's not the first time monsters battled aliens for control of the planet, this was a nice twist and a great tribute to classic 50s creature features.Plot: Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) was about to be married to the dashing reporter Derek when she was stuck by a meteorite full of an unknown but powerful energy, causing her to grow to nearly fifty feet in height.
When the evil alien Gallaxhar (Riann Wilson) attacks the earth with giant robots and an army of clones, General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) convinces the president (Stephen Colbert) to let the monsters loose to defend the earth from this outer space menace in return for their freedom.The cast was a lot of fun as they all fit very well with their roles like Hugh Laurie as the intelligent Dr. Cockroach (reminiscent of House) and Seth Rogen as the fun-loving but dim-witted B.O.B. Reese's character Susan a.k.a. Ginormica was a great heroine (as well as easy on the eyes) and was developed surprisingly well and and Will Arnett's Missing Link was also pretty cool, plus Insectosaurus is one of the coolest and cutest monsters I've ever seen.
With names like Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Paul Rudd, and more, it was just right on the money for the casting of performers to do the voice acting.The animation style was nice to look at, lots of cool effects, details and nice coloring.
that they have accumulated over the past 50 years.Included in the Monster's squad are Susan, now known as Ginormica and basically a white haired replica of Elastigirl/Mrs Incredible, a gelatinous blob named BOB, a fishy looking thing (apparently the missing link) called Link, a maniacal genius called Dr. Cockroach due to an experiment gone wrong and finally a giant bug called, you guessed it "Insecto".There are really only two fights between Monster and Alien, a few jokes and a couple of pop culture references, though refreshingly less than normal, but not much more than that.You'd think rather than being P.O.'d Susan would be happy to have an excuse to buy an entire new wardrobe!
From "The War of the Worlds" (1953) to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), to "Independence Day" (1996), to "War of the Worlds" (2005), to Godzilla, to both the original and remake versions of "The Fly," "The Blob" and "Attack of the 50 foot Woman," you can bet that if it's sci-fi and cheesy (cheesy sci-fi), it gets lampooned by the film-making team of Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon, working with DreamWorks Animation.Nothing about the animation in this movie really stands out when compared to what we're seeing from Pixar or Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli (his animation is truly the best, in my opinion), but "Monsters vs.
Her cohorts do their normal supporting-role thing and manage to stand out on their own, but don't have the emotional depth that Susan Murphy does.As she's walking down the aisle to her husband-to-be Derek (Paul Rudd), Susan starts to grow - and I mean really grow - into a 49-foot-tall giantess (while still somehow managing to remain fully clothed in her wedding dress), who the government later names "Ginormica." She is soon taken prisoner, watched over by General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland, "W.R. Monger" - "War Monger," get it?) and introduced to characters who seem to have popped right out of '50s sci-fi movies - the Gill-man The Missing Link (Will Arnett), the blob B.O.B.
Dreamworks tries its hand in animation after having offered huge successes in the likes of the shrek franchise,kung fu panda and madagascar with this new 2D+3D flick, Monster Vs Aliens.As far as the story plot goes,it is a bit of a disappointment it loses track many a times,and has only a few really good humor throughout.But what makes this movie a "Check it out" flick,is the fact that it has a 3D version which is the saving soul and dreamworks has done a good job in delivering and engrossing the audience with 3D effects and ground breaking visuals.The younger audience will definitely love this movie,cause there where like a dozens of tiny tots jumping up in their seats through the movie run time while i was watching!Hence i would strongly recommend for anyone having young kids,that they would have a great time.This movie is for anyone who likes animation movies and please watch it in 3D,or u r missing a lot!cheers!!!.
At the least there's a very good voice cast assembled- aside from fairly straightforward leads like Reese Witherspoon there's Seth Rogen and Hugh Laurie as monsters and Rainn Wilson as the evil alien set to make clones of him/itself to take over Earth- and it does have wonderful animation.
are quite likable amusing & it would've been nice if they had more screen time & funnier dialouge to work with...But the aliens' motives & plot must be explained in the meantime.Like many animated family films these days, "Monsters vs.
Aliens", the latter movie is superior as a MOVIE but like the former Dreamworks flick, I think there was a lot of untapped potential.The visuals were excellent (the most beautifully animated Dreamworks film yet) but it wasn't as funny as it could've been even though there were many jokes & one-liners.However, I'm not a child nor do I have a family of my own, so maybe I'm being a tad bit harsh.Children (and most parents) will Definitely enjoy this movie, so I do recommend it..
(Well, you get it, just look again at the film's title.) Besides Witherspoon, excellent voice-over work was done by: Seth Rogen as B.O.B., Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach, Will Arnett as The Missing Link, Rainn Wilson as Gallaxhar, and Stephen Colbert as The President.
Monsters Vs Aliens is a very funny animated movie from Dreamworks.