Movie Review: Monsters vs. Aliens

Looking at the trailers before this movie it looks like "Monsters vs Aliens" is kicking off a long and bountiful animated film season.

A lot of these animated films try to tell a touching story with some meaning behind it. Pixar tries to put this in everything they put out. Dreamworks has it's faults but they try to tell a story with meaning and succeed to some degree.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" kind of slaps up some depth as an afterthought. But you know what? It doesn't need depth. It was a damn funny movie. A woman gets hit by an asteroid just before her wedding. During the wedding she grows to about 50 ft tall and is hauled off by a military that is remarkably well equipped to bring down and imprison a 50 ft woman.

You don't get a real feeling of connection to her family. They're just window dressing. But until the end of the movie nobody watching really cares.

She's imprisoned with a mad scientist turned cockroach, an intelligent jello, the creature from the black lagoon, and a beetle that's even bigger than the 50 ft woman.

Soon they're summoned to fight a robot from outer space that came to retrieve the mineral that the 50 ft woman absorbed. Once they defeat the robot it's alien master comes to deal with matters personally. He, too must be dispatched before he kills or enslaves the whole human race.

There are some messages about not leaving friends behind, be true to yourself, don't marry a shmuck, don't judge someone by their looks, etc. but it looks like someone read the script and put on Post-Its that said "add positive message" and someone else added the positive message about as deep as the Post-It note.

This movie reminded me of the Sunday night cartoons on Fox. I mean The Simpsons and whatnot. There's a central idea or three and the rest of the story was added on to move the main characters to that point. It just so happens that the writers were able to make that trip funny as well.

Will I get it on DVD? Tough call. I'd like to see it again, but I'm not sure I'd see it again and again. It's never gonna be called a great movie, but it's funny enough that it may deserve a place anyway.