Monsters vs. Aliens

"'Now, we call this thing B.O.B. [Ronson screams again, cracking china] WILL SOMEONE TO GET HER OUT OF HERE? [off-camera sound of Ronson being taken away, cracking china] Thank you!' - General W.R. Monger"

Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 American computer-animated science fiction comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was the first animated feature film by DreamWorks Animation to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3D format instead of being converted into 3D after completion, which added $15 million to the film's budget. The film was directed by Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman, and features the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd, and Stephen Colbert.

Plot
When a meteor full of space gunk transforms Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) into a giant, the government renames her Ginormica and confines her to a secret compound with other monsters, like bug-headed Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie). When an extraterrestrial robot lands on Earth and begins a rampage, Gen. W.R. Monger persuades the president to send Ginormica and her fellow monsters to battle the machine and save the plan.

Good Qualities

 * 1) A concept of the monsters battling the aliens is a remarkable one, despite this films plot kind of copying the plot from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
 * 2) Entertaining action scenes.
 * 3) Brilliant animation with good visual effects.
 * 4) Nice voice acting, most notably Seth Rogen as B.O.B., Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach, and Will Arnett as The Missing Link.
 * 5) Great character designs, especially for the monsters.
 * 6) The way how the president communicated with the alien (by playing Axel F on a keyboard) is nothing short of awesome as well as the funny scene that when Monger says the one of the first four monster (Insectosaurus, The Missing Link, Dr. Cockroach, and B.O.B.)'s name, the coffee lady (Ms. Ronson) screams at the footage of the first four monsters, Monger angrily orders Ronson to be taken way. And when the footage of Ginormica (Susan Murphy) showed up with Monger saying her name, a scream similar to Ronson's is heard, which turns out to the President's.
 * 7) Gallaxhar is an amazing villain.
 * 8) The robot probe is cool and his character design is somewhat cute.
 * 9) Great humor in a similar way to Shrek and Shrek 2.
 * 10) Amazing climax at the end.
 * 11) Greatly entertaining soundtrack.
 * 12) B.O.B. is really hilarious.
 * 13) Tons of likable characters, such as Susan (Ginormica), B.O.B., and many more.
 * 14) The monsters were all inspired by classic horror movie icons, B.O.B. was inspired by The Blob, Ginormica (Susan) was inspired by The Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, Dr. Cockroach was inspired by The Fly, Missing Link was inspired by The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and Insectosaurus was possibly inspired by Mothra as both have first attacked in Japan and can shoot silk at enemies, and Insectosaurus turns into a butterfly at the end just like how Mothra is (obviously) a moth.
 * 15) * For aliens; Gallaxhar and his mothership resembles the aliens and the mothership from Independence Day (or The War of the Worlds, especially the 2005 Steven Spielberg film), and the robot probes resemble Kronos from the film of the same name (or The Iron Giant and Omnidroid from The Incredibles), with its shielding similar to the ones from Independence Day.
 * 16) * For humans; Gen. Warren 'War' Monger resembles Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove and Ms. Ronson resembles Dana Scully from mh:besttvshows:The X-Files.
 * 17) While they might look dull, the backgrounds and visuals are very nice.
 * 18) "That two timing jerk!"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Despite being a parody of sci-fi and B movies, it feels similar to The Incredibles due to the action sequences and the plot literally copies mh:besttvshows:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and its adaptations) with B.O.B., Dr. Cockroach, and The Missing Link acts the similar way as the turtles, as this and TMNT both involving a human girl joins four unlikely creatures to stop an evil threat.
 * 2) While good, the character designs are weird when compared to other DreamWorks movies. For example, Susan looks more like an Asian and she also has bulging eyes than a Caucasian-American woman with normal eyes. This occurred because Dreamworks tried to make the film look realistic, but they still wanted the character designs to have cartoonish body proportions.
 * 3) General W.R. Monger and President Hathaway, while awesome characters, are underutilized, not getting enough screen-time with only 5 minutes for both of them . watch these videos showing how little screen time they get compared to 94 minutes in the movie.
 * 4) The subplot regarding Susan and Derek's relationship is boring and stereotypical.
 * 5) Gallaxhar's motivation and backstory is never reveal and played off as a joke (while funny), which can make him feel a bit one-dimensional.
 * 6) This film did have some wasted potential. The premise of monsters and aliens battling each other sounds like a great idea, but this movie doesn't fully take advantage of that premise.

Reception
The film received generally positive reviews from critics but it received overall mixed reception from audiences. On 213 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Monsters vs. Aliens has an overall approval rating from critics of 72% and an average score of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Though it doesn't approach the depth of the best animated films, Monsters Vs. Aliens has enough humor and special effects to entertain moviegoers of all ages". Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 56/100 based on 35 reviews.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5/4 stars, saying, "I suppose kids will like this movie", though he "didn't find [it] rich with humor". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote "WALL-E had more charm, more soul, more everything. But there's enough merry mischief here to satisfy, even if you’re way past puberty".

Trivia

 * 1) The film had a show in 2013. Unfortunately, it wasn't good, so it killed the franchise and ended Nick's partnership with DreamWorks.

Videos
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