Did not hold up the 2nd viewing, still however a nice little surprise, Seth Rogen is great.

B

Reese' character was lovable here but the best voice acting goes to the spaceship computer. Some of the jokes didn't click, and I believe it's on the same league as KFP overall. But god, DW just keeps doing the same films everytime. You get a good laugh, you have non-stop fun, but there's really no depth/originality to those nor affection for the characters. At this rate, DW will never ever touch Pixar in terms of everything, even in WALL•E's year.

B+

So much potential, only about half met. The story is frankly rather weak, as is the entire script. The focus on Reese's character, not to mention casting Reese herself was just... bad. A bad idea and poorly executed. By trying to introduce everything through the "new monster" and demonstrating how she learns to deal with the situation the movie drives itself into the horrible and Dream Works filled land of convention. Consequently the whole thing borderlines boring.

As much as it likes to flirt with the line though, the film is never really dull. The other character's in the film are lively and entertaining, which consequently leads to the train of though, "what if they were it, and Witherspoon's character was gone!" But sadly, that hope is dashed. Still, they provide enough of a damper against "SOOOZZAANNNN" to at least slow the leaking of energy, if not stop it altogether.

Then there is the animation. Which is pretty breathtaking at parts, and sometimes just...good. In this day&age good is normal though, so only the breathtaking parts are really worth noting. There are quite a few, especially near the end with the spaceship and the big sci-fi parts. It looks really great, and while the 3D is extremely gimmicky it's also pretty cool.

some of the humor lands, some doesn't. Overall it doesn't matter that much. At the unfunny parts, I couldn't help noticing how conventional and irritating some of the humor was, and how desperate it sometimes felt. They seemed to be saying, "if we can't get the little kiddies laughing than we're goners!" But it is funny, or at least entertaining, enough that this is not a huge stigma.

All told, it's good. Not great, not nearly what it could have been, with a much better writer, and a better voice actor for the lead, but still a solid new entry into the CGI 3D land.

7/10

B+

It was funny at times, and never really felt boring....

B+
Not their best by a mile but also not their worst by the same distance.

Monsters vs. Aliens is another wonderful addition to the growing Dreamworks Animation studio but the studio still can't reach near Pixar's height. The film though is a fun one with a nice original plot, a wonderful voice cast, and characters that are easy to have fun and watch perform on screen (especially the monster B.O.B. who brings most of the laughs to the screen). It's a fun way to pass by 90 minutes. ***

What a disappointment.

I wish animation studios other than Pixar and Aardman would realize that a good script is always more important than good visuals and cheap laughs.

And Ghibli, right?

Yes, and Ghibli. My bad!

I wasn't expecting anything going in, but kind of liked it in the end. It was by no means a "great" movie, but the I liked the cast (Paul Rudd, Rainn Wilson, Seth Rogan, Will Arnett, Stephen Colbert...), the homage to the "old" monster movies, and thought it was easy to watch.

Bob was definitely the highlight of the movie. Again, it wasn't deep and in a perfect world it would have skewed slightly more toward the adult level of humor... I like it when a CGI flick walks that fine line between adult and kids appeal, and this one went a little further toward "kids" than I would have chosen.

Oh, and I watched it on Blu-Ray on my 65" TV and it looked phenomenal, which may have helped too.

Grade: B

5/10 -> C-

Boring through and through. The story is a collage of numerous 50s/60s B-movies bits and pieces, but without anything new or without a solid new backbone to keep everything together. I feel like they made the whole script in one afternoon using wikipedia.

The visual look is great, but the second thing that horribly reduced my enjoyment is Ginormica. I never fully grasped her size and because of that I wasn't certain if she was big, or if the monsters and the people were small. She changed in size with every scene. The perception was all over the place and I was pretty annoyed by that. King Kong had the same problem, but it wasn't that accentuated there and in the end didn't effect the movie this much.