Monsters vs. Aliens 720p - (2009 Lang: English)

A pleasant surprise! Pretty Innocent, And Fun To Watch!

This was a pleasant surprise: a nice, feel-good film that is pretty innocent and sports the usual beautiful Dreamworks art. The artwork and colors are magnificent. I say "surprise" because it did not get great reviews. Thus, I wasn't expecting the quality film I got.

The good guys - the "monsters" are typically-likable as you see in other animated films of today. They are pretty funny, too, diverse "monsters" like "Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B and The Missing Link. They, along with "Ginormica," who does her impression of the 1950s sci-fi character, "The F-Foot Woman," are appealing and fun to watch.

I'm tempted to describe this movie as "innocent," because it's such a nice story that doesn't have all the innuendos some other animated films have, yet still will make most adults laugh in many spots because there is some good humor that kids wouldn't get. "Monsters Versus Aliens" shows one doesn't need "edginess" in every movie to have adults enjoy the kids' film, too.

Chances are you'll find this movie a lot better than you thought. Give it a shot.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated science fiction film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures.1 It was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion, which added $15 million to the film's budget.

The film was scheduled for a May 2009 release, but the release date was moved to March 27, 2009. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray September 29, 2009 in North America. The film features the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd and Stephen Colbert.

It grossed over $381 million worldwide on a $175 million budget. Although not successful enough to be followed by a sequel, the film started a franchise consisting of a short film, B.O.B.'s Big Break, two television specials, Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space and Night of the Living Carrots, and a television series with the same name.

Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) of Modesto, California is going to be married to news weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd). But before the ceremony, she gets hit by a meteorite and its energy causes her to grow uncontrollably during the ceremony. As a side-effect, her hair turns white. She is tranquilized by the military and awakens in a top secret government facility that houses monsters who lack human knowledge. She meets the warden W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) who is also in charge of the facility, and her fellow monster inmates: Dr. Cockroach P.H.D. (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist who became half-human, half-cockroach after an experiment; B.O.B. (Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate) (Seth Rogen), a brainless, living mass of goo as a result of a food flavoring mutation; Insectosaurus, a massive mutated bug standing at 350 feet in height, and the Missing Link (Will Arnett), a prehistoric fish-ape hybrid who was thawed from deep ice. Susan herself has been renamed to Ginormica.

In deep space, an alien overlord named Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) is alerted to the presence of quantonium, a powerful energy source on Earth, and he sends a probe to retrieve it. The probe later lands on Earth where the President of the United States (Stephen Colbert) attempts to make first contact with it. However, the attempt fails and the probe goes on a destructive rampage, headed straight for San Francisco.

Monger arranges for the freedom of the monsters if they can stop the probe to which the president agrees. The robot detects the quantonium radiating through Susan's body and tries to take it from her, putting many lives at risk. At the Golden Gate Bridge, the monsters work together to save the people and manage to defeat the probe, but this causes the bridge to get destroyed.

Unbeknownst to the monsters, Gallaxhar sets course for Earth to obtain the quantonium in person while the now-free Susan returns home with her new friends and reunites with her family. However, the monsters alienate themselves from the humans due to their inexperience with social situations. Derek later breaks off his engagement with Susan, claiming that he cannot marry someone who would overshadow him and his career. Heartbroken, the monsters reunite, but Susan realizes that her life is better as a monster and promises not to sell herself short to anyone again.

Suddenly, Susan is pulled into a large space ship piloted by Gallaxhar. Insectosaurus tries to save her, but he is shot down by the ship's plasma cannons, seemingly killing him.

Gallaxhar extracts the quantonium from Susan, shrinking her back to her normal size. Gallaxhar then uses the extracted quantonium to create clones of himself in order to launch a full-scale invasion of Earth. Monger manages to secretly get the monsters on board the ship. They rescue Susan and make their way to the main power core where Dr. Cockroach sets the ship to self-destruct to prevent the invasion. All but Susan are trapped as the blast doors close and she goes to personally confront Gallaxhar on the bridge. With her time running out, she sends the ball of stored quantonium down on herself, restoring her monstrous size and strength. After rescuing her friends, they flee the ship and meet with Monger and Insectosaurus, who has morphed into a butterfly after having been in a cocoon following the attack. As they flee, the ship self-destructs with Gallaxhar and his army still on board, killing the aliens inside.

Returning to Modesto, Susan and the monsters receive a hero's welcome. Hoping to take advantage of Susan's fame for his own career, Derek tries to get back together with her, but she rejects him before a television audience by flicking him high into the air, only to be swallowed and spat out by B.O.B. Monger then arrives to tell the monsters about a new monstrous snail called Escargantua making its way to Paris. The monsters take off and fly away to Paris to confront the new menace.

Monster versus Aliens is a sometimes funny and sometimes interesting, but mostly the story is dull and the plot is nearly a non-entity.

However, this movie does take 3D to a new level at times. There's really only one obvious 3D "gag" very early in the movie, but other than that, you are just in awe of seeing these animated characters truly come to life like never before.

The character that steals the show is of course BOB (voiced by Seth Rogen) He is incredibly dumb but also fantastically funny and the most interesting of all the monsters.

The main character Susan (Reese Witherspoon) has this whole back story, but really we never care about it. Much of her story is just recycled from 100 movies that have come before and very predictable.

Still, the action and the 3D are top notch and this is a movie definitely worth seeing if you can see it in the 3D form. In 2D, I only give it a very lukewarm recommendation.