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- 2009 Film Review - Monsters VS
Aliens
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- April 9,
2009
- By Eric M. Scharf
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- "The Media Magnate" has been a big fan of traditional monster movies
since youth and when “Monsters VS Aliens (MVA)” was announced, there
was tremendous energy for the super-sized battle royal!
The excitement was short-lived when the feature was confirmed as a
DreamWorks 3D-animated film with bright colors and cute, strange
creatures with a much younger targeted audience. Expectations – as a
result – were lowered and the mind was opened to hopes of a
pleasant surprise.
What The Media Magnate received for the (current) premium ticket price
of $9.00 was a relatively unique, and enjoyable film but not the
reasonably rich story for which was hoped. MVA was unfairly expected
to reach the bar of their blockbuster brethren within DreamWork's
feature film family,
"Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda."
The story was cute, simple, and even tame at certain points. The one
ironic weakness that could not quite be ignored was the Shrek-like collection of continuity-breaking,
look-at-me, hero moments rather
than a reasonably rich story.
A perfect example of this involves the scene where the President
Hathaway (voiced by Stephen Colbert) inadvertently attempts to procure some life-threatening refreshment.
While in the war room with his cabinet and military advisers, he
reaches for a big red button on a nearby wall, but he is stopped
cold by shouting advisers.
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- That button would have launched the
country’s entire nuclear arsenal. He shrugs and inquires as to which
button he must push to get a latte. He is told to push the other identical
big red button. He pushes the button, serves himself a latte, and
asks his team which idiot designed such a setup. He is told that he,
himself, did it. The President, then, tells his advisers to fire
somebody for such a screw-up.
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- The scene is cute for a
tension-breaking moment and quickly fades . . . unless the President
makes the same mistake twice, which he does. General W.R. Monger
(voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) is there to redirect the Hathaway's
attention just in time.
Such a promising film premise with such a segmented and strangled
story can only be described by the Genie from Disney’s
“Aladdin” as “phenomenal cosmic powers in an itty-bitty living
space.”
The co-directors, Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon, clearly chose to give the
multitude of talented actors attached to the film maximum airtime
(almost) regardless of how the story may be impacted.
There was plenty of temptation for the directors to break the
story up into well-coordinated, talent-touting snippets rather than
a smooth story from beginning to end (like one or more of the
"Shrek" sequels).
The film centers on Susan Murphy (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), a California girl going about the
innocent business of preparing to wed her dreamy fiancé, Derek Dietl
(voiced by Paul Rudd), the toast of the Modesto area news reporting scene
. . . and the most popular weatherman around. Everything is
going according to plan, and she simply could not be happier.
Her wedding day elation takes a pretty big dent when Derek informs
her that they are going to an even better place than Paris for their
honeymoon: Fresno! After a brief let-down, and a not-so-subtle
reminder that this detour will help his career, Susan jumps on board
the Good Ship Dietl and is back to being thrilled to marry her dream
boat. She seems shackled to blind devotion by a minor inferiority
complex . . . just enough for Derek to remain a self-centered glory
hound.
Shortly thereafter, the greatest moment of her life finally arrives:
Susan is hit by a meteorite the size of a single-family home! This
is, however, no ordinary potato-shaped intergalactic boulder.
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- While
it should flatten Susan against the ground like so many ripe and
juicy tomatoes, it transforms her into quite the opposite. The
meteorite is juiced with a rare and powerful ingredient, called Quantonium, which causes her to
glow, and then GROW 50-stories tall, gives her
incredible strength, and, most noticeably, turns her hair a
brilliant bright white.
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- Not surprisingly, the government responds immediately to this
non-FEMA event by capturing Susan, transporting her with an
impressive-looking oversized personnel carrier aircraft (think C5
Galaxy-VTOL hybrid), and depositing her into a secret
prison-like military facility used to house other similarly-odd
creatures who later become her teammates in what begins to resemble
the old TV series “Monster Squad.”
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- The somber mood and sterility of the
very next scene – where Susan is
abruptly introduced to her “cellmates” – created the expectation of seeing
Dr. Helen Magnus, (from SCIFI Channel’s “Sanctuary” television
series) walk up to Susan and welcome her to her new home, where
Magnus “tracks, protects and learns from the extraordinary and
paranormal creatures that inhabit our world."
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- Rather than Dr. Magnus, Susan is
greeted by a jetpack-elevated General W.R. Monger who
gives her the grand tour and lays the ground rules toward
achievement of her potential freedom from "Monster Manor."
Susan’s extraordinary teammates include a
varied cast of characters.
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- Dr. Cockroach (voiced by Hugh Laurie). He is a mad scientist, with an approach very similar
to Doc Brown from “Back to the Future,” who accidentally transformed
himself into a roach-human hybrid. While his experiments mostly tend
to backfire, it is not for a lack of kind-hearted yet mad
intentions.
B.O.B. (also known as Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate and voiced by
Seth Rogen). He is a blue one-eyed
indestructible gelatinous mass that was spontaneously created in a
laboratory when scientists injected a chemically-altered ranch
dressing into a genetically-altered tomato. B.O.B.’s
lack of a brain causes him to suffer from some ridiculous memory
problems. He has a tendency to “sample” almost everything in his
given environment by swallowing them through his conveniently empty
head and expelling them through his mouth. When those “things”
include humans, B.O.B. also tends to forget to spit them out fast
enough to prevent them from suffering oxygen deprivation. Nonetheless, this process allows B.O.B. to temporarily
inherit the memories of the swallowed person, which makes for
several embarrassing moments for B.O.B.’s “victims,” as he cannot
keep those memories to himself.
The Missing Link (voiced by Will Arnett who sounds more like a
slightly higher-pitched Cliffy from Cheers). "Link" is a top-heavy
fish-ape hybrid in the mold of a
kinder, gentler, more fun-loving “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
He is constantly worrying about “being able to perform” in public
after so many years hidden away in the team’s secret military
bungalow. He is particularly close and protective of the largest
member of the gang.
Insectosaurus (voiced by a limited range of digital sound effects)
is an enormous, prehistoric, insect-dinosaur crossbreed
the size of a modern Olympic stadium. Insectosaurus is the
biggest monster known to humankind while always scared half-to-death
of screaming humans. Go figure.
“Calling All Monsters,” indeed.
While character development has rarely been a strong suit of monster movies
. . . character discovery, or more specifically,
self-discovery of one’s special abilities, might have greatly
enhanced the presence of this likeable team of oddballs.
Susan, for example, could have discovered that she could, in fact,
grow larger and stronger than a 50-story tall person, but only
within a limited time frame, as the Quantonium in her physical
make-up would need time to reconstitute itself (e.g. the Dilithium
crystals, in the USS Starship Enterprise, when pushed beyond
capacity through warp speed travel, would need time to regenerate
before the ship could travel at that speed again).
The Missing Link, for example, could have discovered that he is much
faster and stronger than he remembered, after being out of
commission for so many years. This would add weight to his concerns
about still being as capable as he used to be, and it would give
credence to his belief that, in the good ole’ days, he was much
better than he fears he has become.
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- Dr. Cockroach, for example, could
have discovered that his transformation into a roach-human hybrid
also produced the armor-like shell that most roach characters tend
to display in stories to which filmgoers have been treated. The
roach sidekick, in Pixar's "WALL•E," gets steamrolled twice, to
great effect, only to be seen popping back up as if nothing
happened.
The self-discovery theme reminds of the story
effort put into Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” a personal favorite. “The Incredibles” was a film interwoven with
self-discovery by characters who were learning how to use their
super powers on-the-fly, much like Susan but further complicated for
'supers' of a much younger age (like Incredibles' characters Dash
and Violet).
While Susan and her new friends are becoming
better acquainted back at their secret lair (including whacky and unsuccessful attempts by Dr.
Cockroach to return Susan to normal), moviegoers learn that big trouble is
brewing outside of our solar system and speeding towards Earth.
The
entity responsible for the meteorite that changed Susan’s life,
interstellar conqueror Gallaxhar (voiced by
Rainn Wilson), sends a robot probe to Earth in an
attempt to recapture his precious Quantonium. If that is not
troubling enough, Gallaxhar also has four eyes, literally, and the
two outside eyes are in constant sea-sickness-inducing motion,
making it seem like he is a walking pendulum.
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- President Hathaway – accompanied by
his secret service detail (resembling metrosexual Robert Palmer
boys) and the U.S. military (straight out of "Iron Giant") – shows up at the
robot probe crash site to greet the mammoth construct.
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- The news reporter at the probe crash
site (voiced by Ed Helms), as a brief aside, does an excellent job
channeling his inner Tom Brokaw.
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- Hathaway
climbs up a hysterically long impromptu-constructed wooden
staircase. There is a synthesizer at the top. He pulls out a
harmonica and plays the catchy one-liner from "Close Encounters Of
The Third Kind" to get into tune. He then performs AXEL F's "Beverly
Hills Cop" theme song on the keyboard one-handed while waving his
other arm and strutting around like David Lee Roth.
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- The robot probe was not impressed,
as he took an initial swing at Hathaway's stairway to heaven with
one of his incredible crane-like arms. The U.S. military jumps to
action, providing enjoyable mimicry of the great warfare scenes from “Independence
Day.” Nonetheless, the military provides no such deterrent to the
massive one-eyed robot probe, and the monsters are called in to bat
cleanup.
Susan, now-renamed Ginormica by the military, in tandem with
Insectosaurus, uses her incredible strength to stop the menacing robot probe.
This scene, in fact, is a perfect example of the amazing grasp of
size and scale held by the film crew. Insectosaurus standing on the
other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from the equally enormous robot
probe, with the smaller Ginormica and plenty of cars and ant-sized
humans between them, is spectacular.
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- After learning of his robot probe's failed bid to reacquire the Quantonium,
Gallaxhar decides to take care of business himself, arriving on
Earth and informing the human population of his intension to take
over and enslave everyone. No hard feelings. Only business.
President Hathaway does the only thing he can, as he guarantees the
monsters their freedom in return for stopping Gallaxhar’s diabolical
plan and saving the world.
Ginormica and her teammates do, indeed, decide to take on Gallaxhar,
his massive robot probes, and his army of Gallaxhar
clones. Once, again, the military’s ultra-cool personnel carrier
aircraft is called into duty to transport the team to their
destination, and, once, again, it is only for a brief moment,
after which it is damaged beyond repair and crashes. While the
X-Men’s super cool aircraft was destroyed in an instant after almost
zero use in X-Men 3 . . . such impressive
aircraft / spacecraft should always command greater attention – even
if the (comedic) goal is to expose such a powerful construct as
woefully incapable of an equally sizable performance. Then,
again, like Insectosaurus, a fantastic mode of transportation with
very little usage, while unpopular, is understandable.
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- The team escapes their doomed
aircraft and, after another “moment” involving General W.R. Monger,
they just manage to make it onboard Gallaxhar’s enormous spacecraft.
Ginormica literally looks normal-sized in comparison to it.
Ginormica quickly encounters Gallaxhar, and, once he determines that
Ginormica is not easily dispatched, a heart-pounding chase ensues.
Gallaxhar stays just ahead of her grasp until he manages to capture
her. She awakens in an hourglass-like containment area wearing a
skin-tight jumpsuit only TRON fans could love. The only things missing
from it were glowing neon blue rhinestones.
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manages to recollect the Quantonium from her body without harming
her, which was simultaneously impressive and disappointing. Gallaxhar
was well within his (evil) rights to
extract a pound of flesh for his trouble, and, yet, it was
refreshing to see such an all powerful villain use a passive
technical method to reacquire the element of his desire.
Ginormica’s teammates come to the rescue only to be stopped rather
easily by Gallaxhar. Ginormica aggressively pursues Gallaxhar into
his escape pod chamber, where his precious Quantonium is being
loaded. She understands the only chance she has to save her friends
and stop Gallaxhar is to break the containment field around the
Quantonium, allowing it to engulf her once more, and regaining her
former powers. She knows she will never be able to return to being
normal again, but she has no choice, with her teammates in need . .
. and no normal life to which she can return (as proven by her
disastrous reunion with her parents and their neighbors).
Ginormica
ends up halting Gallaxhar’s mad scheme, freeing her teammates (her
friends), and hitching a ride on Insectosaurus’s back, who
flies in on his new wings (after awakening from a cocoon after his
bruising encounter with the first robot probe), just in time to
validate his larger-than-life existence, and just as Gallaxhar’s
ship self-destructs. His massive spacecraft
– by the way
– is
not the most creative design anyone has ever seen, and it looks
similar to
one of those Polycom conference call devices that are used through the
corporate world.
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- And, thus, Ginormica and her teammates end up being set free – not
free to return to the “normal” lives they once knew – but free to
see where their brighter future will take them.
It is human nature to want something you see or experience, or with
which you interact, to be “what you want.” You want all of your
meals to taste great, your vehicle to drive like a silky smooth race
car, your clothes to make you look like a film star every time you
put them on. Films of all kinds, all genres, and all grades are
going to have fans for some of the most common and outlandish
reasons.
The Media Magnate (and his 5-year-old female film follower) enjoyed this film about how a common person went through an
unexpected transformation, joining an outlandish team just in time
to save the world from destruction, and learning to appreciate her
own self worth a little more in the process. More satisfaction would
have been in order if the
directors had taken more than a moment to better address an age-old love for
monsters and aliens . . . and what they would do to each other if
they really mixed it up on the battlefield (with humans as the
traditional collateral damage).
It is The Media Magnate's hope that MVA is merely the first of
several such 'mash-ups' . . . and that future efforts will deliver
more fulfillment of childhood monster movie dreams.
“In 300 years, when evil returns, so shall we.” – The Mondoshawan in
“The 5th Element.”
“In the next 5-10 years, when the next MVA effort
arrives in theaters, so shall we.” – The Media Magnate and his mini
movie musketeer.
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