MONSTERS VS ALIENS

PARAMOUNT

RELEASED 3 April 2009

'Monsters vs. Aliens' has a 'killer' concept. What if all those hokey B-movie monsters from years past (The Fly, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, Godzilla baddy Mothtra, and the Attack of the 50ft Women) were actually real and the US goverment kept them in a top secret holding facility in case of a larger threat to the world, such as, oh I don't know, maybe an alien invasion?

The afore-mentioned gang are all holed up minus our 49ft 11in lady (a joke that strangely wasn't used in the movie but only in press notes) who goes by the name of Susan. About to marry her vain weatherman fiancee, she's hit by a glowing asteroid and frightens the wedding-goers as she grows to her new monstrous height. The government capture her and introduce her to her new 'workmates', a scenario that she isn't best pleased with. Still, as an alien robot attack ship tears up the Golden Gate bridge and the monster team are let loose on this threat, she soon comes to see the fun in her new life, rollerskating around San Francisco on custom-made full-size cars. Squidy-looking alien Gallaxhar is after the otherworldly asteroid gunk that made Susan so large and captures her, so the monster team have a final face off against the evil villain in his orbiting spaceship.

There's a good group of actors here voicing the characters: Susan (Reese Witherspoon), mad scientist Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), 20,000-year-old fish-man The Missing Link (Will Arnett), a goopy, acid blob called B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), and General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). The film looks good, and the 3D is a treat, especially in the opening scenes. But the story, which promised so much from the concept, never delivers. There are no surprises, as the monsters defeat the aliens in a very routine manner. There's a definite lack of excitement in the action scenes, and while the character designs are good, the alien Gallaxhar clones himself, thus reducing the alien invasion to a boring army of identical-looking squids.

Biggest problem of all is the simple fact that the film isn't very funny. There a couple of chuckles, and kids will enjoy some of the slapstick gags, but most of the dialogue is dead on arrival. Everything the US President says and does is irritating, and Keifer Sutherland is wasted as the barking General, as is Hugh Laurie in mad scientest mode. Reese Witherspoon and Seth Rogen get all the best lines, Rogen playing an animated version of his stoner creation from ‘Pineapple Express’.

I love 3D films, and I love the IMAX (where I saw this), but ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ didn’t leave any lasting impression on me, which is solely the fault of the plot and the script. A very disappointing movie from the Dreamworks (Shrek, Kung Fu Panda) stable.

TWO OUT OF FIVE