Monsters Vs Aliens
94 minutes,
USA (2009), PG
Average user rating 
(4.6 / 39 votes)
(4.6 / 39 votes)
A team of oddballs, including a young woman accidentally transformed into a giant, must fight an extra-terrestrial threat in DreamWorks' CGI family movie
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Monsters Vs Aliens Review
A team of oddballs, including a young woman accidentally transformed into a giant, must fight an extra-terrestrial threat in DreamWorks' CGI family movie
DreamWorks Animation (Shrek, Madagascar) is once more onto something with Monsters Vs Aliens. The combination of 21st century CGI filmmaking with 1950s science fiction is a no-brainer, but the fact that Monsters Vs Aliens also has plenty of novel 3D, a fun-if-familiar storyline and a great cast makes for a winning family film.
In the first few minutes alone we've floated through Saturn-like planetary rings, followed a meteor hurtling through space and been given a 'duck' moment when a toy ball flies out of the screen. The gimmickry settles down, however, when the story kicks in.
The heroine is Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon), an ordinary young Californian who has the misfortune of being struck by that meteor on her wedding day, seconds after she's told her self-obsessed fiancé Derek (Paul Rudd), "You know it's bad luck to see me in my dress." A weird element contained in the space rock makes her grow - to 49 foot 11 inches to be precise. Yep, she's a modern variant on the central character of 1958's Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman.
Susan is immediately nabbed by the government and taken to an ultra secret facility. "This place is an X-File wrapped in a cover-up and deep fried in a paranoid conspiracy," says her new warder General WR Monger (Kiefer Sutherland), whose other charges are also based on the archetypes of 1950s science-fiction. There's the insect-headed Dr Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist variant on The Fly. There's the half-ape, half-fish Missing Link (Will Arnett), a variant on The Creature From The Black Lagoon. BOB (Seth Rogan) is an amiably dim spin on The Blob, created through GM food experiments. Finally Insectosaurus, a babyish 350ft bug, is a reimagining of Toho's irradiated giant monsters, specifically Mothra, from 1961.
In the first few minutes alone we've floated through Saturn-like planetary rings, followed a meteor hurtling through space and been given a 'duck' moment when a toy ball flies out of the screen. The gimmickry settles down, however, when the story kicks in.
The heroine is Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon), an ordinary young Californian who has the misfortune of being struck by that meteor on her wedding day, seconds after she's told her self-obsessed fiancé Derek (Paul Rudd), "You know it's bad luck to see me in my dress." A weird element contained in the space rock makes her grow - to 49 foot 11 inches to be precise. Yep, she's a modern variant on the central character of 1958's Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman.
Susan is immediately nabbed by the government and taken to an ultra secret facility. "This place is an X-File wrapped in a cover-up and deep fried in a paranoid conspiracy," says her new warder General WR Monger (Kiefer Sutherland), whose other charges are also based on the archetypes of 1950s science-fiction. There's the insect-headed Dr Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist variant on The Fly. There's the half-ape, half-fish Missing Link (Will Arnett), a variant on The Creature From The Black Lagoon. BOB (Seth Rogan) is an amiably dim spin on The Blob, created through GM food experiments. Finally Insectosaurus, a babyish 350ft bug, is a reimagining of Toho's irradiated giant monsters, specifically Mothra, from 1961.
"Great fun as a big, 3D spectacle"
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