New Movie: Monsters vs. Aliens

[Thorin]

Managed to catch this movie with the family on opening day (today) on the first showing of the day (holy cow!).  Monsters vs. Aliens is funny, witty, and has two levels of humour (one for the kids, the other for the adults, especially if the adults remember and like old b-movie horrors like Creature from the Black Lagoon or Godzilla vs Mothra).

Here's some character information: http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/first-look/first-look-the-characters-of-monsters-vs-aliens.php

Hugh Laurie does an excellent job voicing Dr. Cockroach (I couldn't tell it was him even though I'm a huge House fan).

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone with kids (even my two-year-old wasn't scared), as well as anyone who likes funny, off-beat movies that tie in movies of old.  There's a lot less Monsters vs Aliens battles than I expected, as it takes a while to get the background set up for the monsters, but I found this to be a pleasant surprise.

[Darren Dirt]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/03/the-critics-on.html


"The box-office story is yet to be written. But the critical reception has been lukewarm at best, with most of the country's top critics giving a thumbs-down to the film."

Damn.




Ebert: "If this is the future of movies for grown-ups and not just the kiddies, saints preserve us.... For anyone who would just like to be left alone to see the damned thing, like me, it's a constant nudge in the ribs saying 'Never mind the story, just see how neat I look.' "

Double-damn.



But I'm still gonna see it with the little ones on the IMAX mega-screen

[Thorin]

You need to quote that in context.  Specifically, here's a longer quote that includes the build-up to Ebert's statement, and that happens to explain what he's complaining about:

The most damning attack came from perhaps the most influential of all American critics, Roger Ebert, who is normally a reliable enthusiast for artful or visionary filmmaking. In fact, most of his review today dissected "Monsters vs. Aliens'" 3-D effects, which he pronounced "a distraction and an annoyance." As he plainly put it: "If this is the future of movies for grown-ups and not just the kiddies, saints preserve us.... For anyone who would just like to be left alone to see the damned thing, like me, it's a constant nudge in the ribs saying 'Never mind the story, just see how neat I look.'"

In other words, he wasn't complaining about the movie's contents, he was complaining about the 3-D effects added to the movie.  You make it sound like the movie is bad, whereas the critics are complaining about the 3-D effects adding nothing but a heftier price tag to the movie.  This movie is zany fun much as Robots was zany fun.  Sure, the plot isn't all that deep, but is plot always more important than entertainment in a movie?

[Darren Dirt]

I apologize for excerpting like that -- however upon reading in context, and overall the whole review, I believe (imo, etc. etc.) that Ebert is saying that the 3D effects were so in-yer-face that it took away from the ability of the viewer to judge the movie on its normal story-character-action elements that make it an up-thumb or a down-thumb. In other words, he was critiquing the effects by saying they shouldn't have been so obvious thus reduceing the possibility of immersion-into-the-fantasy-world the viewer goes to the theatres to experience... and this is an animated movie; it's all "effects"!

just my interpretation of his opinion, anyway. But, theoretically, here's proof: "For anyone who would just like to be left alone to see the damned thing". I may be wrong though, it's been an exhausting week. +_+

[Thorin]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I got from his review as well - he didn't comment on whether the movie was good or entertaining or anything like that, just that having to wear 3-D glasses irritated the hell out of him.

Now, we saw it in regular 2-D mode (the passes wouldn't pay for 3-D), and I gotta say, the movie itself was actually quite entertaining.

I'm not really sold on 3-D, never have been.  Unless you can immerse me in it so well that I can look behind me or above me or below me and see some other part of the movie, it's still a 2-D experience - that is, me looking at a flat screen.

[Mr. Analog]

Was it on par with The Incredibles? I mean so far most animation obsessed yobs say it's only "ok"... thoughts?

[Darren Dirt]

Was it on par with The Incredibles? I mean so far most animation obsessed yobs say it's only "ok"... thoughts?

Overall the quality of animation was on par with, say, "Ice Age", where you felt they captured the scenes to an appropriate degree, but it was definitely not the level of a Pixar classic like "Monsters Inc".

The 3D was FANTASTIC, though, I humbly admit -- cuz DAMMIT the tech was hyped more than a Microsoft IE update! (but in this case it was not just empty marketing promises  )

The 3D was not as "in your face" as Ebert claims, but it was prevalent (paper scattering, fireballs exploding, balls bouncing, etc.) and more realistic than a lot of other noteable movies (like the 2 most recent films by Robert Rodriguez) One stand-out scene was when a hand was leaning on a table at the bottom of the frame and it really DID look like the hand was OUTSIDE of the frame! Expensive experience (me and 4 kids @ Silver City), but still admittedly an "experience" that I am glad I took the chance on.


Oh, and the story was weak and most of the voice actors were basically playing themselves (other than Dr. House and Dwight Schroute, happily) ; I'd give it a 7 out of 10 (which reminds me, gotta check YT for the "Spill" review, they're always hilarious)

So no character or plot point really sticks with you after watching the movie, other than the amazing 3D ... curse you Katzenberg!

[Darren Dirt]

PS:

I'm not really sold on 3-D, never have been.  Unless you can immerse me in it so well that I can look behind me or above me or below me and see some other part of the movie, it's still a 2-D experience - that is, me looking at a flat screen.

That was my exact position UNTIL the very first scene in this movie demonstrating the "new" 3D technology (I believe it was the guy with the paddle ball, sorta paying homage to the movie "Contact" or "Armageddon" or similar, methinks). The tech really is new, it deserves the word "new", it really does put previous technology to shame... And (bonus!) I didn't have a headache or eye-strain by the end of movie.

[Thorin]

Was it on par with The Incredibles? I mean so far most animation obsessed yobs say it's only "ok"... thoughts?

Overall the quality of animation was on par with, say, "Ice Age", where you felt they captured the scenes to an appropriate degree, but it was definitely not the level of a Pixar classic like "Monsters Inc".

One of the things The Incredibles and Monsters Inc had over Ice Age and Monsters vs Aliens is a longer run-time.  What I noticed in this film is that it takes quite a while to get the characters introduced and the story set up, and then it all ends too soon.  A movie like Lilo and Stitch doesn't take very long to set up, so there's more time for the story to actually play out.

As for actual animation, well, some things looked very life-like while others were made obviously cartoony.

My biggest beef with this movie was its length - I think they could've added 20 to 30 minutes and had a much more involved story.

What I liked best about this movie (besides finding myself actually laughing a few times) was that it exposed my kids to sci-fi thinking and stereotypes.  Things like that an amorphous blob doesn't need a mouth but instead just absorbs and dissolves its food, that mad scientists experiment on themselves and survive, that normal people don't react well to abnormal people, that normal-people-who-turn-into-monsters still think of themselves as normal people, that aliens bent on taking over Earth don't have the capacity to care for humans, etc.  Hopefully they'll keep their mind open to new ideas and concepts for the rest of their lives.

The movie was pretty clearly geared towards kids and parents, though.  As a parent, I found it funny.  And my kids were laughing and giggling through most of it as well.  I would say if you're not the kind of adult that would go see Robots or Madagascar without kids, then you probably wouldn't go see Monsters vs Aliens either.

[Thorin]

Just looked up the run-times for all four movies that I mentioned:

The Incredibles: 115 minutes
Monsters Inc: 92 minutes
Ice Age: 81 minutes
Monsters vs Aliens: 94 minutes

I dunno why, but I thought Monsters Inc was longer.  Anyway, I stand by my statement that a little more time in the movie would have added time to expand the story, as too much time was taken up meeting all the monsters.

[Mr. Analog]

Well I may have to check this one out I think