Monsters Vs. Aliens: Review By BonKH

In case you haven't been paying attention to the last decade or so of CGI cinema, there's been something of a tit-for-tat series of releases from Dreamworks in answer to projects from Pixar. The first round was "Toy Story" vs. "Small Soldiers", back when wholly CGI productions weren't yet embraced by Hollywood. I won't get into the whole list here, but "Monsters vs. Aliens" is Dreamworks' answer to "The Incredibles".

Dreamworks did a fine job with "MvA", unfortunately it ALL felt like I'd seen it before, because I had. The story gets going quickly, but too quickly to build any connection with the main character, Susan, voiced by Reese Witherspoon. Like the ensemble characters in "Mars Attacks" the audience never has much reason to care about any of them.

Also like "Mars Attacks" (which was itself based on a series of 1960's trading cards) were the hordes of ever popular big-headed aliens. I love the big-head alien stereotype for humor, but "MvA" ripped off some of "Mars Attacks'" depictions of the alien personalities and failed to present them with any kind of originality.

Many shots of massing aliens were overly reminiscent of shots of Clone Trooper forces from the Star Wars movies. It may have been intended as visual homage, but it felt more like an easy out for the animators.

The voice actors did a fine job with their dialog, making sense all the way, but I found myself missing a word or two here and there, usually at the beginning of sentences. This never hampered the story because there wasn't much story to hamper.

"The Incredibles" was an excellent piece of story-telling, thoroughly enjoyable on multiple levels by all members of the family. "Monsters vs. Aliens" is fluff for the kids, and the kid in many of us.

I'm not saying you shouldn't see "Monsters vs. Aliens", just don't expect too much from it. And, if you see it, by all means, see it in RealD 3D!