Monsters vs. Aliens - 8.0/10
Much like Snakes on a Plane and The
Expendables (both of which I enjoyed, by the way), I knew pretty much
what to expect from this movie when I bought my ticket. However unlike those
two, this movie did not just meet my expectations, but exceeded them in ways I
would have never considered. This is my first time watching it since then, and
I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.
This movie makes clear what it’s going for before it even
begins. As a send-up of the old style B-grade science fiction movies of the
fifties and sixties, the Dreamworks logo is presented to us in shaky black and
white as a UFO suspended on a visible wire wobbles by. Yeah, it’s that kind of
movie, and I’m already totally on board.
The premise is simple and explained for you in the title:
aliens are invading, and our only hope is to use monsters to fight them. There’s
so much you can do with that, and they absolutely did. The various monster
designs were clever while at the same time paying homage to the classics. And
of course the protagonist, Susan, becomes the obligatory 50 foot woman. She is such an excellent character and I love what they did
with her. She is as ordinary as a person can be until this crazy thing happens
to her and she finds herself locked in a secret facility full of freaks of
nature who act like she’s one of them. Her reaction is about what you’d expect:
she freaks out, cries, and wants to go home.
In a short time (a month or so, if I recall correctly), we
see that she has adapted to her captivity (though she hasn’t given up on the
dream of returning to normal), and has even made friends with her companions.
This hints at a greater strength that is revealed later on, but let me focus on
those other monsters for a moment. Their designs are funny, as far as that
goes, but they’re just filling out roles: the tough guy, the smart guy, the big
guy and the dumb but lovable guy. While all of them are likable enough, only
the last (a blue gelatinous blob voiced by Seth Rogen) is particularly
memorable. His quirk is that he literally has no brain (“Turns out, you don’t
need one!”), and this is a constant source of actually pretty clever humor
along the lines of what Pixar did with Dory in Finding Nemo. Rogen’s
voice and particular style of delivery (not to mention his trademark laugh) fit
the character very well, too boot.
The villain is amusing, but more in the sense that he does
funny things than that the character himself is actually funny. It works well
enough. And finally, the end of the opening credits was just as telling as the
title: “and Stephen Colbert as The President”. That’s exactly what it sounds
like, and it works brilliantly. Because they don’t really mean the actor
Stephen Colbert is voicing the character of the president (though technically
that is the case), they mean Stephen
Colbert is playing The President. It’s awesome.
There’s no romantic subplot, which I found refreshing since
just about everything has one of those. The closest we come is Susan realizing
her fiancé is a dick and that she’s happier as a monster. By the end of the
film she proudly embraces who she has become (even the name she was given: “Ginormica”).
For good reason, too. While at first she panicked and tried to run away, she
was eventually forced into a situation where she had to fight a giant alien robot,
and she realizes just how strong she is. And I don’t mean just because she’s
huge; I mean because she’s totally badass.
The high points of the filmall revolve around Susan shrugging off that
ordinary, rather passive person she once was and kicking all sorts of alien ass.
Unflinchingly. And not always giant and invincible while doing it.
Finally, as I mentioned before, this is a very affection
parody of a very specific genre, and it’s done very well. In addition to all
the obvious jokes, there are innumerable references to just about every science
fiction film made in the last fifty or sixty years, from The Day the Earth Stood Still
to Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, and from E.T. to The
Matrix. When the staff at a SETI-like institute calls headquarters near
the beginning of the film to report a real object, their call sign is “Red
Dwarf” and the message is “We have a code Nimoy!” Love it.
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