Click here for the review of Monsters vs. Aliens

SPOILERS must be tagged with the "SPOILER" tag!

"The problem with Monsters vs. Aliens is that all those writers didn't think much about potential audience members on the hairy side of puberty."

Loving that quote.

Seeing as I'm definately on the hairy side, I think i will be giving this one a miss...

But I'm 23 and I watch Spongebob...and it's damn funny show.

I'm sorry to hear that MvA disappointed. I was kind of looking forward to it. I suppose there's always DVD rental.

Just as my two bits, I hope not to ever hear the term "hairy side of puberty" ever again.

Why? It's great! I'm still wiping the coffee off my keyboard.

really disappointed here. i wanted this movie to get 3d right. guess we'll have to wait, wont we?



me too.
i dont necessarily watch it, but if im surfing and it comes on - ill definitely stop.



why would something being funny/great make the pores of your hands secrete fluids and make the cup of coffee slippery?? Why? what kind of a creature are you?

Sigh. It's unfortunate, because when Kung Fu Panda came out, animation fans were finally given the impression that Dreamworks had finally "gotten it". That the cheesy plots and bad pop culture gags were tying down their movies, never reaching the amazing original and timeless quality of Pixar's work. When the trailer for "Monsters Vs. Aliens" debuted, reaction was mixed. Some thought they still heading in the right direction, and others thought they were going back to the same old tired routine. (Madagascar 2 should have already indicated this)

Looks like the latter was right. This, however, is a required rental just on the basis that it includes voice-actor extraordinaire Stephen Colbert in the role he was born to play: The President of the United States. Too bad his show was off for the week so he couldn't flaunt that fact in our faces, maybe next week he declare himself a box-office champion.

James, it seems like whenever an animated movie comes out which you says will capture kids and bore parents you always give it 2 1/2 stars. I find this odd, since you almost always give these types of movies very negative reviews, more in line with a 2 star movie. Star ratings aren't really that important, I just find this strange. Is it because of the entertainment value these movies provide for the kids?

"(named General W.R. Monger, and voiced by Jack Bauer)"

Don't you mean "voiced by Kiefer Sutherland"?

Considering that Kiefer is now Jack....no he doesn't.

hey! spongebob is awesome. a lot of adults (like me) enjoy that kids' show

You gave M&A the same star rating as Watchmen.

Just wanted to tell you how much that annoys me

Colbert isn't in much of the movie - three or four scenes, I think. However, one of his scenes (the one involving the long flight of stairs) is the best scene in the film.

When it comes to awarding 2 or 2 1/2 star ratings to this sort of film, I don't lose much sleep over it. There's no clear dividing line - it's more of a "gut feeling." It may be worth noting that I saw Monsters vs. Aliens TWICE before assigning a rating, although the bulk of the review was written after the first viewing. The problem was with the 3-D. I needed to see it a second time and focus on the movie without the distraction of things flying out of the screen at me.

Very disappointing. The comedy falls flat, the voice actors are criminally underused, as is the premise (Stephen Colbert is funny though).
It just feels like Mars Attacks all over again.

Even the monsters suck--very lazy character design. None of them are as memorable as a single Pixar character. Insectosaurus is probably the best one, and he is just a throwaway one in the movie.

The worst part of the movie is that it is really boring. If you are not a small child, there is very little to keep your interest on the screen. There are bright colors, but no story, no emotional investment of any kind.

I will say I saw this in 2D so maybe it is better in 3D, although from what James has said about it I am guessing not.

Full Review

I saw the non-3D version yesterday with my wife and 3 kids plus my mother, and we all enjoyed it - even the adults. My mother even remarked afterwards how she enjoyed that it had humor in it that an adult could appreciate.

MvA definitely has tons of missed opportunities to satire or spoof the genre, but considering just the movie they made rather than the one I'd want: I'd say that while it certainly wasn't as good as Kung Fu Panda, it was at least a step above, say, Bolt or Madagascar 2.

I'd probably give it 3 stars

I saw it last night. I have to disagree with the comment about adults being bored. I found the movie to be very entertaining and had its very funny moments.

On the other hand, I did smoke up before the movie, so maybe that's why it was funny.

I was also somewhat let down by the movie being mainly written for a young audience, however one theme that I found enjoyable was the emphasis on role reversal in the film. To say it in the parlance of our times, there was a ton of girl power in the movie. And one of the more enjoyable scenes (for me) was the car/date scene.

You have a woman who was initially sacrificing her life for a man, and in the end was able to come to terms with her own abilities and realize that her sacrifices for the man were one sided, allowing for a character arc for a woman that is very lacking in the majority of offerings to kids and adults alike in these days of Hannah Montana The Movie and Confessions of a Shopaholic. These examples are not animated offerings, but I had trouble coming up with recent animations that would compare well.

Whether or not this theme will find a crevice in the mind of a five year old girl to take root in is debatable however.

Animated movies have a history of placing girls/women at the focal point. Admittedly, there was often a Prince Charming involved but, by the '80s, he had been reduced to a secondary role (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Mulan). Recently, however, there has been a slide toward male-oriented animated movies. Actually, since the advent of computer generated animated films, there have been surprisingly few "girl power" animated features, at least from the major studios. Kind of unfortunate that something as mediocre as this one represents a counter example.

I'm still wondering if anyone saw this in 3D and found the 3D to be distracting.

I found it distracting in certain scenes, and those scenes shouted "gimmick for kids".

There was at least one scene (possibly more but none come to mind) that was done well: the opening scene with the planetary rings, asteroids and the exploding planet. But it worked for me mainly because that was the focus of the scene and there wasn't dialog or other things that I needed to pay attention to at the time.