Monster Vs Aliens: Excited?

YES!

It’s a great idea
Taking a load of B-Movie concepts (giant woman, oozing blob, mutated scientist) and throwing them into a comedy where they battle aliens sounds on paper like a recipe for success. Monsters are always fun (unless Roland Emmerich gets his hands on them, of course) and from the looks of the trailers, the chosen beasties don’t disappoint.

 

They clearly love the subject
Co-directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon are two of the company’s most reliable talents and with their love of B-movies driving them, this should be something special. Every hoary old cliché gets a workout and nudged with real affection, from the idea that America is the only place aliens ever land to the cackling mad professor.

 

Get a load of that voice cast
While we’re not always sure that DreamWorks’ usual drive to hire big stars over the Pixar right-voice-for-the-character approach works, we can’t fault the choices this time out. Reese Witherspoon has decent comic timing and she’s surrounded with talented joker types such as Will Arnett, Hugh Laurie and Seth Rogen, who seems to be carving out a small niche in ‘toon voice-overs. Oh, and Stephen Colbert as the president? Genius idea.

 

NO!

DreamWorks doesn’t always get it right
While we can’t argue with the box office, Kung Fu Panda was merely a fun diversion, hardly a groundbreaking film. And DreamWorks hasn’t exactly made a hit every time. For every Shrek there’s a Shark Tale. We’re just hoping Monsters Vs Aliens doesn’t fall into the Average DreamWorks Comedy Valley.

 

3D gimmick?
The directors have gone on the record time and again saying that the 3D here doesn’t serve simply as a gimmick to get people into cinemas, but the studios are pushing everyone to develop it as a way to make films unique again. While the idea that MvA was created as 3D from day one gives us hope that it’ll make better use of the format the way in the same way that Coraline did, we’re still not quite convinced it works. Oh, and the tickets are more expensive. Gah!

 

Pop culture a go go?
A few pop culture gags is fine here and there, but DreamWorks tends to litter their movies with it to an annoying degree. In the one short scene we watched, we’ve spotted three or four – and that’s in a few minutes. Let’s hope they’ve throttled them back elsewhere and not sacrificed good other material.

 

Excite-O-Meter rating: 4/5