Confession: sometimes I didn't even watch the movie I "reviewed" because it's all in the press release. You simply have to rewrite it to suit your publication's tone and audience. You may not know this, but often the movie isn't yet available to watch when you're writing to meet a tight print deadline. You just have to work with what's available, unfortunately. I think the healthy pirated DVD industry in Malaysia has a lot to do with the limited advanced press screenings for films over here.
Since the inception of digitally animated films, animation giants Pixar and DreamWorks have made clean sweeps at the box office time and again without a single glitch (almost). DreamWorks Animation’s latest 3-D animated romp, Monsters vs. Aliens, has already proven successful with the biggest opening weekend for a film this year. This probably comes with a sigh of relief from DreamWorks execs after box office A-bombs Bee Movie and Flushed Away delivered mega-doses of consecutive failure.
On her wedding day, Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteorite infused with Quantonium, a powerful element that causes her to grow into a 50-storey-tall giantess. The government captures and imprisons Susan at a top-secret facility where other monsters (inspired by classic 1950s monster movies) are held. Hugh Laurie lends his smug British accent to Dr. Cockroach Ph.D, a mad scientist who accidentally transforms himself into a human-roach hybrid. B.O.B., a brainless, indestructible gelatinous mass is voiced by laid-back comedian Seth Rogan. The Missing Link (Will Arnett) is a Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon-like humanoid amphibious fish, and the adorable, towering mutant larvae, Insectosaurus completes the team. When egomaniacal alien despot Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) lands on Earth to extract the rare Quantonium and conquer the world, the monsters are released to vanquish the evil overlord.
The all-star voice cast to Monster vs. Aliens is a selling point, but in total it only manages to check the “mildly entertaining” box. While it will appeal to kids and die-hard animated movie fans, for the rest of us, this flick is only worth watching for the visuals.
Cast Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Rainn Wilson, Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, Paul Rudd Director Conrad Vernon, Rob Letterman Runtime 95 mins
Text Maybritt Rasmussen
This review can also be found on the KLue website here.
Article taken from KLue Magazine June 2009, Issue 128
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