Monsters vs. Aliens

Rating: 2.5 stars

In the 3-D animated sci-fi flick Monster vs. Aliens, blushing bride Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) gets zapped by an alien meteorite and becomes 50-feet tall, much to the chagrin of her smarmy TV weatherman husband (Paul Rudd). She then gets absconded by the government and placed in a secret laboratory with other “monsters.”
“But I’m not a monster!” Susan protests. Eventually, she bonds with her fellow charges: Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a brilliant scientist who, a la Vincent Price in The Fly, accidentally turned himself into a roach; The Missing Link (Will Arnett), who just wants to party; B.O.B. (Seth Rogen) a brainless but loveable blob; and the Mothra-like Incectosaurus.
Monsters vs. Aliens is about rejecting convention and embracing your inner freak. It also has lots of fun sending up those 1950s sci-fi films, although most of those jokes will go over little ones’ heads. There are several laugh out loud moments: Susan, now nicknamed Gigantica, dangles perilously off the side of a building before she realizes that her feet are practically touching the ground. B.O.B. flirts with a Jell-O mold. When the president, voiced by Stephen Colbert, encounters an alien spaceship, he gamely plays the Close Encounters of the Third Kind melody on a keyboard (this later dissolves into the theme to Beverly Hills Cop).
Monsters vs. Aliens is a swift and silly, likeable and forgettable. DreamWorks animation has stopped trying to imitate Pixar—wisely—and is now just trying to put us in a good mood. Mission accomplished.