Animation in which a woman is turned into a giant and bands together with the other accidentally created monsters when an alien invasion...
Certificate
Duration90 mins
Review by
This is a film that I need to get it from of my chest, I'm not saying this is an all time masterpiece but its a movie that I want to talk about. Recently I'm beginning to love the disaster movies or space invaders Kaiju movie genre. I beginning to find the creatures coming from another planet or monsters humans and I find it interesting. I adore the 2010's Planet Of The Apes trilogy, Pacific Rim an idea from a nerd never gets old and the Godzilla movies, oh my God-Zilla the older movies are so goofy. Also Shin Godzilla is great AND WHY FILMCLUB DID YOU NOT INCLUEDED IT!!!!! (Beep)
Camera man: "Marker, and talk!"
Sorry about my violence, I run wild a points in review but no need to be precious.
But one day I asked myself where did that fondness came from? One day (or today) I was looking at Apple TV and there was Monsters Vs Aliens it got me thinking, this movie, this movie, this is the movie of space invaders sending robots and monsters fight; I remembered liking this movie as a kid and drawing it. I also watched the specials and the Nickelodeon TV show so its ashamed that DreamWorks just leave this dead like kids don't want an action movie they want the next Trolls movie that's what then how come Madagascar of all franchises is still used for marking today even if the last one came out also a decade ago!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, lad laddaddy da! Without a further-a-do lets get into it:
Review:
Plot: Do you hate on YouTube videos are mainly plot summarised do you hate that? Oh umm, to reconsider I done it, ummmmmmmmmm,
So story about Susan getting married and her dad is King Neptune, she crashed into meteor and become giant. She's now part of the government and meets new monsters. Big robot from space launch by SquidWard "I have no soul" so realised that militaries don't equal useful so they used "monsters" because its so simple. After the big fight in Sans (Diego zoo) Francisco Susan introduce her new friends to society but her boy friend gets cancelled and dump her. She gets kidnapped, monsters save ,ship blow up, save world, big slug coming and no sequel to defined an ending.
Animation: I would say that sometimes they put right through the screen gives this 2-D animation vibe and its really interesting to look at and also the 4th wall break joke.... I also really like the inspiration and parody from classic movie monsters like Bob is the blob, the Missing Link is the Creature From the Black Lagoon, Dr Cockroach is The Fly, Susan (or Ginormica) is the attack of the 50 foot woman and Insectosaurus is Mothra. That is one of the strongest part of the movie tome, with the Inspirations and character design wise.
I love the opening both the score and the animation and lighting. It looks very colourful and the space scene is pretty cool.
I also love the big fight scene with the big robot, its not only a homage to Godzilla but I love the intense music and I well say the robot ironically is more of a threat then Squidward.
Casting: Its another one of those movies who has stag voice cast, Seth Rogen of course he plays as Bob but honestly like the majority of his performance he just play his comedy stick and I don't have anything else to say really, its not insulting but nothing that catch me. Except for you Stephen Colbert!
Also the movies Director Rob Letterman also made Shark Tale (I already covered that thing).... and The Captain Underpants Movie, that is peak superhero movie, would you know!
Is the movie actually funny?: Well, sometimes yes, its one of those DreamWorks movies that thankfully don't have annoying doo, fart or any baby humour. Its another one of those DreamWorks movies that don't have the tired dance ending trope like a lot of kid animated movies do these days. In fact the movie could have been a lot worse, you at the title "Monsters Vs. Aliens" is a really stupid name like a lot of the DreamWorks have and you think your going to have a wrap but no. As a comedy the way executed is surprisingly good, its not laugh out loud but the insane vibe like like of people just runs away and break down a fence and Bob "where are they running from?" and Bob talking to jelly of all things, in fact I want to talk about Bob for a sec and I'm trying to stick with the same page.
Bob is the joke of the movie, his all thing is him being stupid like he has no brain so he doesn't have a clear mind, oh yeah this "I may not have gentlemen, but have an idea!" Sure they realised the world treat them like monsters but at the movie's core its a comedy and the movie doesn't really want to take itself seriously, so that's why the President is completely fictional.
The bad: Susan isn't a very well written character arc, now I'm only saying about her character arc not her entire character, I'm also not saying she's unlikable Mary Sue for any means. You see, when she saw the meteor, what does she do?
She runs straight into it! Girl! There are many routes you can go and I don't you know what fraction is. Its basically so plot can happened, so she got powers to be big, there is no side effects or any out come and by the end of the movie she decides to be a monster, I get its supposed so Squidward would not be gigantic and she escapes but even think about by the end she's completely okay being a monster and I'm like what. The movie never explains what benefit her, you can argue say "she's makes good friends" but she already have her family.
Also the scene where she magically lift the robots arm just comes out of nowhere for me, I guess supposed to be a setup when she hit the helicopter earlier but that's got to do with her strength rather then any of the skills and how can that be an mistake. She hits a helicopter, that's it.
Also she's working with the government, what kind of job is that?
Squidward the villain (my siblings call him that): I'm not saying he's a bad character per say but he's one of those typical villains who "wants to be the most powerful being" something like, I actually don't many people say this is a prototype of MegaMind because the two movies have very different gimmick, one is subvert the superhero trope and the other is a monster movie however I would say Galactus- I mean Gallaxhar is very similar to MegaMind with his slightly spunky side to him and him constantly keep picking the clone despite all of them are clones.
He's not bad or annoying but he's not interesting or threating either. Also he's voiced by Rainn Wilson, he's the professor from Transformers 2... yeah that movie, moving on.
Final thoughts: Sure they realised the world treat them like monsters but at the movie's core its a comedy and the movie doesn't really want to take itself seriously, so that's why the President is completely fictional. Compare to Shrek (also being a comedy) which the people around him threat him like a monster but the main difference why is Shrek a much better movie is because they show us how lonely Shrek and not just people around him King and Queens also is not ready for him. This doesn't show us that and mainly play it as a joke but still again movie hates serious stuff.
In fact now I think about it, this movie IS a parody movie, I (in my opinion) categorised in the parody genre (despite its not a parody but who cares? Me!), its a genre take a beloved, well liked movies into a comedy. Its a genre that I kinda missed, classics like Airplane! or Johnny English. The why reason I said "I missed" is because nowadays we are getting comedies that are solely 4th wall-break jokes, reference jiggling keys and self-aware humour that goes "we know we are stupid thing and we want you to know this is stupid" don't you hate that?
And now the conclusion as the title says, is this movie good as I remembered? Well its no masterpiece but honestly even then it could have been so much worse in DreamWorks library.
So that's everything I got to say!