Saw the sneak preview on Saturday of Monster House with 15 other people in a 450 seat theatre, and I can assure you that it is in no danger of scooping the animated Oscar for 2006.

Boy, it was sloooow. The main story, when they finally got around to it, was a strange and melancholy one. But before that the set-up with the babysitter and then the videogame guru were drawn out and pointless. The finale was kinda fun, but this movie seemed boringly long at 91 minutes. It might have made a good hour-long Twilight Zone episode with a 46 minute running time plus commercials. As it is, I can't imagine who's going to be lining up to see this one...

2 out of 5.

Bradley didn't like it. Must mean it's great.

Heh! Can't wait to hear the general reviews next week, and see how the WOM and BO pan out.

Let's see if I really do live in Bizarroland...

I've been looking forward to this one for weeks. Hopefully it truly is the best animated movie of the year.

7/10 (B-)

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Cory/MonsterHouse.php

I agree with the following part of your review:

The epitome of "Not bad".

The film meanders along for a good portion of the running time (an almost too-long 80 minutes). A lot could have been spent building the story in a far better fashion, but the movie opts to devote time to celebrity cameos, if you will, with the likes of Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Lee, Jon Heder, and Kevin James, serving little to no purpose to the film.

Once the film finally does get interesting (only about the last 20 minutes, with the previous ten minutes serving as good build-up to the big finale), it gets tense, emotional, and a tad humorous. If those first 45 minutes didn't have so many slow spots, featuring pointless characters, the movie could have been really good.

Grade: B-

That's spot on, basically. I thought the story needed some work, especially at the beginning.

It was okay, but quite slow and didn't catch my interest. And was it just me, or did it seem like this could have gotten away with a PG-13? I don't know, it just seemed weird that characters were drinking and stuff.

C

I loved it.

It was like a CGI animated Tim Burton film - except when Tim Burton was making great films.

It was clever, witty, dark, strange, sad, and most of all - fun. Yeah, the story took awhile to get going, but I didn't mind because I found the side characters to be hilarious. Once the story does get going, though, it's a strange and sad little slice of melancholy about a morbidly obese circus sideshow of a woman (the spirit of the titular house) took in by a lonely man that loves her.

The film is filled with sumptuous and beautiful imagery. It's directed more like a live action piece than an animated one.

The score is excellent. It's very Elfman-ish, which is to be expected considering all of the obvious Burton influence found in the film.

So, yeah... 'twas great. Some minor qualms aside, it's one of the better kid friendly films I've ever seen.

A-, or ***1/2

Well that makes Ebert and makeshift on the positive review side...

Apparently the only two sane people in the room!

Seriously, for someone who seems to put story on the backburner for a lot of their critiques, I'm surprised you put such a heavy emphasis on this one and it's leisure pace.

I'm glad you and Rog liked it, though I disagree with your comment about the importance of story to me - screenplay/storytelling rules...

A well made cartoon.

The animation was great, the characters were interesting, the plot twists were well executed.

Grade: A-

5/10 (C-)

I must say, I'm not terribly surprised by all these negative reviews. Not to get all pretentious douchebag or anything, but it's very much a time capsule type film. I think in order to fully enjoy it, you would have had to been weaned on stuff like Goonies and Monster Squad as a kid. I mean, I loved it so much because it brought me right back to that place I was as a child, discovering film for the first time through my older brother.

I'm giving it a reluctant C+. Reluctant because I did enjoy some of it, and as a film, I think it's a step in the right direction out of the crappy state of computer animated films today.

The story chugs along nicely. Though I will agree that it takes a while for things to get going, they handle rather creatively the story of, yes, a house that eats people. Once they actually get into the house, it's even pretty exciting.

There's also some really interesting and unorthodox animation here. It's not beautifully animated, per se (as we've come to expect from so many films otherwise lacking in other departments), but it does do things with camerawork (I guess you could call it) that I've never really seen an animated film attempt. This is also the first CGI film I've seen in a long time that hasn't overplayed its voice actors. Even Cars fell victim to this a bit.

But the film as a whole still suffers from some unfortunately lousy writing. The kids are snarky but not funny. The gags will do it for kids, not so much for adults. And again, for films like this to be successful, they need to strike a balance here. This one nearly does with its good story and spirit but ultimately faulters. Just a little.

I think it's very much a time capsule film. I probably would have loved this when I was 10 or so.

I just don't think, despite its rather dark and scary material, it ever really does enough to aim higher than that demographic.

Loved it. Best animated film of the year so far, and an instant classic to boot.

What I would say is it might have benefitted from a Halloween release.

A

I agree

Actually, I've given it some thought, and on many levels it's a perfect summer film (aside from the Halloween setting that is). It has that kind of Spielbergian, Stand By Me, Monster Squad charm that's perfect for a lazy summer afternoon. There really hasn't been a film like this for years. The last one I can even think of that falls in a similar category is Hocus Pocus (another film I loved unabashedly)... that kind of clever, snarky kids adventure film they made so many of in the 80s and early nineties.

But, and this is probably more important from the studio's perspective, it's also exactly the kind of film you re-release in IMAX 3D just in time for Halloween.

Oh man, all those mentions of Monster Squad in this thread make me look forward to this flick more and more. Monster Squad is really one of those films that made my childhood!

Another film it brings to mind is the first (good) half of Stephen King's It.

Lecter, I think you'll love it.

Hopefully, hopefully...