Monsters vs Aliens (2009, Letterman & Vernon)

"Boys, set the terror level at code brown, 'cause I need to change my pants." -The President of the United States, Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Not exactly the height of comedic dialogue, and to put it simply, it’s no Shrek. Hell, it’s no Shrek the Third. With Monsters vs Aliens, Dreamworks proves that their Shrek films have been an anomaly, and that Pixar still reigns supreme in the computer-animated genre with little significant competition.

What’s mind-blowing about Monsters vs Aliens is the cast. It’s like a who’s who of comedy today, and includes everyone from Seth Rogen to Paul Rudd to Rainn Wilson to Will Arnett to Stephen Colbert. For pedigree, there’s everyone’s favorite girl-next-door Reese Witherspoon, House’s Hugh Laurie, and Keifer Sutherland doing a fantastic R. Lee Ermey impersonation. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how such a stellar cast was assembled for this project— because it obviously wasn’t a result of the material. And therein lies the problem.

There are a few chuckles here and there and one semi-interesting action set-piece. Reese Witherspoon’s 50’s-era housewife has a character arc involving learning to stand up for herself instead of in her husband’s shadow that riffs nicely off of the source material Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. The other characters include Will Arnett’s The Missing Link (Creature from the Black Lagoon), Seth Rogen’s B.O.B (The Blob), and Hugh Laurie’s Dr. Cockroach PhD (The Fly). But the high-concept and the monster-movie-inspired characters offer up so many rich story possibilities and details which go unexplored or undeveloped, that for every smart idea which actually made it into the script is a treasure trove of unused material.

In fact, the movie is so underwhelming that I began to imagine the script had originally been intended as live action, and how much more exciting it would have been to see a chase around the streets of San Francisco if it had actually been done with live actors and real sets. It’s never a good thing when a movie is so boring that you’re imagining a better version of it while watching the film on a first viewing. The sharp color palette and the 3D computer animation were probably the only things keeping my attention, and I think seeing a non-3D print would have been a coma-inducing experience, taking away the best element the movie had to offer. Of course, if you catch it on DVD or Blue-Ray, it won’t be in 3D.

The film suffers most in its third act, which feels like a clichéd, harried ending more fitting as the final act of some kiddie animation produced for Saturday morning television. It loses any of the meager pop and excitement it had going for it and just quietly fizzles out at the end of its very short running time.

If Dreamworks wants to be able to compete with Pixar, they need to realize that sharp, crisp animation isn’t everything; and that the most important element in Pixar's outstanding films are the intelligently-written, visually and emotionally-textured scripts where ideas have been developed and layered, and characters have truly been given life.

4/10