Monsters Vs Aliens

Dreamworks seemed initially to be just knocking a few animated movies together in an effort to make some money. There was hardly any attempt to actually do it properly, and on occasion it seemed that their ideas were identical to other animated movies that were being released at the time. With Monsters Vs Aliens, Dreamworks has come up with a very clever idea that incorporates a few quite funny concepts.

Told mostly from the perspective of Susan, we meet a young woman who is hit by a meteorite and promptly becomes a giant (with white hair, bizarrely). And so we get the first thread of the storyline which is Susan attempting to deal with becoming a "monster" and being unable to return to her old life.
We meet the other monsters - the Missing Link, Bob, Dr Cockroach and Insectosaurus. It's worth mentioning the rather excellent vocal work down by actors Reese Witherspoon (Susan), Seth Rogan (Bob), Hugh Laurie (Cockroach) and Keifer Sutherland (playing their captor General W R Monger). These actors really bring their characters to life and ingest them with a large amount of humour.

Of course the fact is that the monsters are all based on a group of 50's monsters that were always a bit of a joke (50ft woman, the Blob, the creature from the black Lagoon, and one of Godzilla's opponents). It's this sort of thing that really, really makes the movie a family movie - the kids can enjoy the general silliness, but the adults, particularly the older ones, who can identify who these monsters actually are.

Through in an alien who looks like a 1950s alien, but with tentacles, and agani Rainn Wilson gives Gallaxhar the OTT performance that is perfectly required.

There is still a lack of depth to this movie, unlike the Pixar movies, but Dreamworks is clearly making a lot of effort, and they are starting to produce some quite quality work.