Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
3/27/09
Back
in the day, the eternal struggle in animation was between the Merry
Melodies shorts of Walt Disney, with their cute, non-threatening menagerie
of well-dressed animals living recognizably human lives and Warner Bros.'
Looney Tunes, with vaguely psychotic critters living in the wild
and blowing each other up with dynamite. Today, a new generation
of Disney animation is just as popular and just as proper: hard to
think of too many Disney/Pixar flicks that don't play to the 80-year-olds
in the audience just as well as the preschoolers. There's considerably
less artistic ambition at play across the aisle at breakaway rival Dreamworks,
where a winning formula that dates back to Antz mixes anthropomorphic
critters of all shapes and sizes with what the MPAA likes to call “rude
humor”. You could argue that Disney's model is aimed at the adult
in kids while the Dreamworks one shoots for the kid in adults. And
this time out, they've delivered a title to stir the imagination of 10-year-olds
of all ages: every last letter of Monsters vs. Aliens 3D promises
awesomeness, and this animated sci-fi action comedy delivers it in spades.
It's
Susan Murphy's (Reece Witherspoon) wedding day, but her plans to tie the
knot with vaguely loutish TV weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd) are interrupted
by a meteorite which falls on top of her outside the church. Infused
with exotic alien radiation, she grows to 50 feet and is captured by government
soldiers. She awakens inside a government facility so secret speaking
its' name is a federal crime: General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland)
has renamed her Ginormica and locked her away along with a strange collection
of other monsters he's captured in 50 years of keeping the world safe from
the unexplained. She joins mad scientist Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie),
defrosted fish man The Missing Link (Will Arnett), brainless blob B.O.B.
(Seth Rogan), and the truly gigantic irradiated bug Insectosaurus (unintelligible
roars by Conrad Vernon). It's Monger's every intention to lock these
guys away until the end of time, but the very same radiation that changed
Susan has also drawn the attention of the evil Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson),
who sends a giant robot to Earth to search for it. With the United
States in panic, the General offers President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert)
the services of his monsters, who agree to battle the alien machine in
exchange for their freedom. But it won't be that easy: Gallaxhar
won't give up his power source without a fight, and only one side will
be left standing in the eternal struggle between monsters and aliens.
No,
Gallaxhar doesn't have a sympathetic backstory that allows him to make
friends with the monsters (the backstory he does have is divvied out in
absolutely hilarious fashion) and Insectosaurus doesn't just want a family.
We're firmly in Dreamworks territory here and Monsters vs. Aliens
is fast, funny and action-packed, delivering the goods and getting out
in just a hair over 90 minutes (padded out by the slowest, biggest-fonted
end credits since Red Eye). The movie does have a message
(that it's OK to be different, and sometimes those differences are the
best things about us), but it's delivered without a moment of preachiness
(or even speaking it aloud). I was also really struck by how good-hearted
the story is: all kinds of moments where duplicity and betrayal are
de rigeur in Hollywood movies are left to go by as the monsters never stop
working as a team and General Monger never goes back on his word.
I don't usually get into this sort of thing because I'm not a parent, but
I think this is a movie kids will love that's also really good for them.
And
a big reason both kids and adults will love it is a really wonderful set
of characters. Start with Susan/Ginormica. On paper, she's
got a big ol' Wet Blanket sign around her neck, the identifiably human
character who gets all the screen time while the cool ones are forced into
the background. But voiced with that potent star power Witherspoon
can (but doesn't always) deliver, she emerges as a real character on a
real journey that really interested me. As a 50-foot woman, she finds
strength and courage she never knew she had, and also finds that she likes
herself better this way. And the script skillfully keeps her dreams
of living happily ever after with the odious Derek in play without allowing
them to eat up more screentime than they should. It's a weird thing
to say, but as I think back over her career, I think tolerance is a note
Witherspoon plays (as in Legally Blonde and Penelope)
better than just about anybody, and Susan's bond with her fellow monsters
is really convincing.
The
character most people will be talking about, though, is B.O.B. A
gooey mass created by a failed experiment to create a tasty new dessert,
B.O.B. has no brain (“Turns out, you don't need one!”) and does occasionally
forget how to breathe. Between Seth Rogan's outstandingly dimwitted
vocal performance (he's a real master of voice work) and the amazing work
of the animators, this blob is both lovable and fascinating. He's
got a single eye that floats around in his mass and can be removed once
in a while, and we see him pass through solid objects and eat things that
slowly and visibly dissolve inside him.
Dr.
Cockroach is just the right mix of mad and loyal, and Laurie has a ball
with his relentless enthusiasm. Created by a theoretically sound
experiment to imbue humans with the indestructibility of the cockroach
(one of many delightful pieces of black-and-white historical footage Monger
shows the President when introducing his charges), the Doctor is smart
enough to build anything out of trash and cockroach enough to eat everything
he doesn't use. And that Ph.D. turns out to be in something surprisingly
useful.
For
reasons known only to him, The Missing Link may have been thawed out of
the arctic ice, but he's interested only in heading for the beach and scaring
bikini-clad women. Arnett affects a great world-weary, out-of-shape
voice for the only one of the monsters capable of communicating with Insectosaurus,
who helps him cheat at cards. Credit goes to the animation team that
made all these critters just look delightful, but the big bug may be their
greatest achievement, with his huge, unfocused eyes and puppy dog demeanor
(watch his legs when The Missing Link tickles his stomach).
There
are great supporting characters everywhere you look. The evil Gallaxhar
and his army of dimwitted clones are delightful. Sutherland excels
at voicing silly tough guys (he played a similar General role once on The
Simpsons: "Front line Infantry!") and he makes Monger as much
of a sympathetic father figure as old-school war hero (good thing the man
never goes anywhere without a parachute). President Hathaway is a
softball for Colbert's patented officious doofus persona (and wisely the
only character in the movie drawn to resemble their real-life counterpart).
There's even a great one-scene role for Renee Zellweger as a girl whose
really bad date is interrupted by an even worse encounter with aliens.
Directors
Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon keep things moving fast and furious and
both their visuals and the screenplay they co-wrote with four other credited
writers are peppered with great in-jokes nodding to old-school monster
movies. The plot in general owes great debts to alien invasion flicks
from War of the Worlds to Independence Day (upon which the
third act leans heavily). The action sequences are surprisingly effective,
and I credit the filmmakers for knowing the right speed (not that Godawful
“I can't tell what's going on and everything's blurry” speed that's currently
in vogue) to run sequences built on stuff moving really fast.
You
know I liked the movie when I've taken this long to get to the 3D, and
Monsters vs. Aliens is a true milestone in the format. There's
one delightful nod at the very beginning to the notion of “throwing objects
at the screen”, and from there the filmmakers take great advantage of all
the possibilities of the new format. You want surfaces? From
B.O.B.'s gelatinous mass to the slick skin of The Missing Link and Dr.
Cockroach and numerous wonderful reflective surfaces, it's here.
You want depth? Like U2 3D, the film has
great success with differentiating the positions of the members of crowds,
like Susan's wedding party and Gallaxhar's marching clones. But it
adds a great new trick with a vertiginous sense of heights best showcased
by a sequence where the President climbs an unthinkably long flight of
railingless stairs to speak “face to face” with the giant robot.
Looking over the edge, one can see a bottom that really seems to extend
a good hundred feet into the screen. You want action? From
those fast-moving first person shots to skillful use of explosions and
even the vapor trails of jets moving across the screen, the action sequences
are consistently heightened by wearing those glasses. Monsters
vs. Aliens was designed specifically for 3D, not retrofitted for it
after the fact like most previous animated releases, and the care really
shows.
Another
early highlight of what's so far been a tremendous movie year, Monsters
vs. Aliens may be the best movie ever to emerge from Dreamworks Animation.
It combines delightful characters with a great story in a family-friendly
manner without losing any of its' anarchic edge. Unlike its' Disney
counterparts, it won't win any Oscars, but I already can't wait to see
those crazy characters again. |
