Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 American computer-animated 3-D science fiction action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The computer-animated movie was the first to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion, which added $15 million to the film's budget.^[3]

The film was scheduled for a May 2009 release, but the release date was moved to March 27, 2009. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray September 29, 2009 in North America and included the easter egg to the upcoming movies and previews. Monsters vs. Aliens features the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Conrad Vernon, Rainn Wilson, Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Rudd.

Monsters vs. Aliens received generally favorable reviews from critics,^[4] and grossed over $381 million worldwide.^[2]

Plot[link]

Bride-to-be Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is struck by a meteorite on the day of her wedding to weather reporter Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd). Instead of killing her the meteorite exposes her to the substance quantonium, causing her to rapidly grow to over 50 feet tall. Alerted to the meteorite, first by an Arctic base and then Susan's dad, the military arrives and captures Susan. She is given the code name "Ginormica" and sent to a top-secret secure facility headed by General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). There she meets her fellow monster inmates: B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a brainless, indestructible gelatinous blob; Dr. Cockroach, PhD (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist with the head and abilities of a cockroach; the Missing Link (Will Arnett), an amphibious fish-ape hybrid; and Insectosaurus, a massive grub that is even larger than Susan.

An alien named Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) detects quantonium radiation on Earth and deploys a gigantic robot probe to find it. After the robot lands the President of the United States (Stephen Colbert) attempts to make first contact with it by playing Axel F on a keyboard, but the attempt fails and the impervious robot begins destroying everything in sight. General Monger convinces the President to use the his monsters to fight the robot instead. The monsters accept the mission when they are promised their freedom if they succeed. Arriving in San Francisco, Susan is chased by the robot over the Golden Gate Bridge, where the monsters defeat it.

Now free, Susan returns home and introduces her family to the monsters. They are quickly rejected, though, after innocently causing a neighborhood panic. Derek breaks up with Susan, claiming that he cannot be married to a freak since she would overshadow his career. At first devastated, Susan realizes that becoming a monster is an improvement on her life, and fully embraces her new role. Suddenly, she is abducted by Gallaxhar, who appears to kill Insectosaurus in the process. On Gallaxhar's spaceship, Susan escapes and chases Gallaxhar down, only to be lured into a machine that extracts the quantonium from her body, allowing her to shrink back down to her normal size. Gallaxhar then uses the extracted quantonium to power a machine that creates an army of his clones to invade the Earth.

With General Monger's help, B.O.B., Dr. Cockroach, and the Missing Link infiltrate Gallaxhar's spaceship, rescue Susan, and hot-wire the spaceship's power core, activating the self-destruct sequence. During their escape, Susan is cut off from her friends who are trapped in the power core. They tell her to save herself, but Susan instead finds Gallaxhar, who is trying to escape with the quantonium. She tries to force him into releasing her friends, but when he admits he cannot reverse the sequence, Susan instead takes the quantonium, restoring herself to giant size and saving her friends. The monsters leap out of the exploding spaceship and are rescued by General Monger on the back of the transformed Insectosaurus, who has metamorphosed into a butterfly.

The monsters receive a hero's welcome home. Derek tries to get back with Susan since it would benefit his career, but Susan rejects him by tossing him into the air like a doll. He is caught, swallowed and spit out by B.O.B. on camera. The monsters are then alerted to a giant snail named Escargantua attacking Paris and they fly off to face the new menace.

Cast and characters[link]

Monsters[link]

• Reese Witherspoon as Susan Murphy/Ginormica, a normal young woman who is struck by a radioactive meteor on her wedding day, causing her to mutate and grow to a height of 49 feet 11 inches (15.21 m). Meek and unassertive, she just wants to return to her old life, but gradually warms up to her new status as a monster. In addition to her size, she is amazingly strong and has a resistance to energy attacks. She serves as the film's central character.
• Seth Rogen as B.O.B. (Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate), an indestructible gelatinous mass created when a genetically-altered tomato (which he referred to in the Halloween special as his mother) was injected with a chemically-altered ranch dessert topping. His greatest strength lies in his ability to digest any substance as well as being indestructible. His one weakness is that his mutation did not give him a brain ("Turns out, you don't need one!"), making him dimwitted, such as mistaking the other monsters' goals in life for his own. His main enjoyment in life is digesting things.
• Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach, PhD, a brilliant but mad scientist who, in an experiment to imbue himself with the abilities of a cockroach, ends up with a giant cockroach's head and insect abilities, such as being able to climb walls and a high resistance to physical damage. He is charming and sophisticated in spite of his tendencies to eat garbage and laugh maniacally. He works with Susan to help her learn more about her new condition. He is also an avid dancer, which comes in handy when overriding the alien ship's security system.
• Will Arnett as The Missing Link, a 20,000-year-old fish-ape hybrid who was thawed out of an iceberg, only to escape and wreak havoc at his old lagoon habitat. Usually referred to as Link, he behaves as a macho jock most of the time, but is in reality very out of shape. Despite this, he is an expert martial-artist and takes it upon himself to lead the team in attacks, even if his energetic attitude does not always work to their advantage.
• Conrad Vernon as Insectosaurus, formerly a 1 inch (25 mm) grub transformed by nuclear radiation into a 350 foot (110 m) monster with the ability to shoot silk out of his nose. He is unable to speak and is mesmerized by bright lights (usually used to lead him to other locations); He also has a close bond with the Missing Link, who can communicate with Insectosaurus. As Butterflysaurus, he is able to fly and becomes the Monsters' mode of transportation.

Aliens[link]

• Rainn Wilson as Gallaxhar, the self-proclaimed alien king who hopes to take over Earth. He is served by gigantic robot probes (around the same size as Insectosaurus) and possesses a giant cloning machine. He claims to have suffered several traumas in his youth, driving him to destroy his own homeworld, and plans to make a new one on Earth. He aims to collect quantonium – the substance that transformed Susan – to give his cloning machine enough power to generate an army of clones of himself to conquer Earth, and is determined to extract it from Susan. Gallaxhar serves as the main antagonist of the film.
• Amy Poehler as Gallaxhar's Computer, who follows Gallaxhar's orders, albeit with a sarcastic tone.

Humans[link]

• Kiefer Sutherland as General Warren R. Monger, a military leader who runs a top secret facility where monsters are kept. It is his plan to fight the invading aliens with the imprisoned monsters. In a scene during the credits, he claims to be 90 years old, in spite of his youthful appearance. His name is a pun on the word warmonger. Despite imprisoning the "monsters", he never shows them any particular disrespect, and upholds his part of the bargain to set them free when they defeat the alien probe. Later on, having helped the team infiltrate the ship, he comes back for them on Insectosaurus, just as he promised. At the end of the film, Gen. Monger is promoted to the President's senior security staff.
• Stephen Colbert as President Hathaway, the impulsive and dimwitted President of the United States. Not wanting to be remembered as "the President in office when the world came to an end," he agrees with General Monger's "monsters vs. aliens" plan. He is very tolerant of the use of weapons, firing repeatedly—and pointlessly—at the original alien probe. He even suggests using nuclear weapons to attack the aliens, only to be stopped every time by his more-reliable staff. Colbert's performance as Hathaway is distinctly similar to the caricature of himself that he portrays on his Comedy Central series, The Colbert Report.
• Paul Rudd as Derek Dietl, a local weatherman and Susan's ex-fiancé. He jumps at whatever opportunity he has to boost his career, which causes him to place himself before his relationship with Susan (he cancels their plans to have a romantic honeymoon in Paris to land an anchorman job in Fresno, for example). After she sees him as the self-obsessed man he really is, she effectively turns him down by publicly humiliating him during his attempted interview with her.
• Jeffrey Tambor as Carl Murphy, Susan's over-emotional father.
• Julie White as Wendy Murphy, Susan's loving mother.
• Renée Zellweger as Katie, an adventurous human girl. Her date with her boyfriend Cuthbert is interrupted by the landing of Gallaxhar's robot.
• John Krasinski as Cuthbert, Katie's more timid boyfriend.
• Ed Helms as News Reporter
• David Koch as newsreader who comically notes how aliens only ever seem to appear in America (voice-over only in the Australian Edit).

Production[link]

Ed Leonard, CTO of DreamWorks Animation, says it took approximately 45.6 million computing hours to make Monsters vs. Aliens, more than eight times as many as the original Shrek. Several hundred Hewlett-Packard xw8600 workstations were used, along with a large and powerful 'render farm' of HP ProLiant blade servers with over 9,000 server processor cores, to process the animation sequence. The movie demanded 120 terabytes of data to complete, with one explosion scene alone requiring 6 TB.^[5]

Since Monsters vs. Aliens, all feature films released by DreamWorks Animation will be produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format, using Intel's InTru3D technology.^[6] IMAX 3D, RealD and 2D versions were released.

Release[link]

Marketing[link]

To promote the 3-D technology that is used in Monsters vs. Aliens, DreamWorks ran a 3-D trailer before halftime in the U.S. broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. Due to the limitations of current television technology, ColorCode 3D glasses were distributed at SoBe stands at major national grocers. The Monsters, except Susan and Insectosaurus, also appeared in a 3-D SoBe commercial airing after the trailer. Bank of America gave away vouchers which covered the cost of an upgrade to a 3-D theatrical viewing of the film for its customers.^[7]

Home media[link]

Monsters vs. Aliens was released to DVD and Blu-ray in the US and Canada on September 29, 2009 and on October 26, 2009 in the UK. The home release for both the DVD and Blu-ray format only contain the 2D version of the movie. However, the release is packaged with a new short, B.O.B.'s Big Break, which is the more traditional 3D that required green and magenta glasses.^[8] Also included are four pairs of 3D glasses.^[8] On January 6, 2010, it was announced that a 3D version will be released on Blu-ray.^[9] On February 24, a tentative March release date was set for the UK, where anyone who buys a Samsung 3D TV or 3D Blu-ray player will get a copy.^[10] On March 8, it was reported that the 3D Blu-ray will be released in the United States, also with Samsung 3D products, on March 21.^[11]

Reception[link]

Critical reception[link]

The film received generally favorable reviews. Based on 209 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Monsters vs. Aliens has an overall approval rating from critics of 72%, with an average score of 6.4/10.^[4] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 62% based on 39 reviews.^[12] By comparison, on Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 56, based on 35 reviews.^[13] Roger Ebert gave the film a mixed review, saying "I suppose kids will like this movie", but said "I didn't find the movie rich with humor."

Box office[link]

On its opening weekend, the film opened at No. 1, grossing $59.3 million in 4,104 theaters.^[14] Of that total, the film grossed an estimated $5.2 million in IMAX theaters, becoming the 5th highest-grossing IMAX debut, behind Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight and Watchmen.^[15] The movie made $198,351,526 in the United States and Canada making it the second-highest grossing animated movie behind Up. Worldwide, it is the third-highest grossing animated film of 2009 with a total of $381,509,870 behind Up and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Awards[link]

On 2010, the films was nominated for 4 Annie Awards, including Voice Acting in a Feature Production for Hugh Laurie. Reese Witherspoon and Seth Rogen were both nominated for best voice actor at the 2010 Kid's Choice Awards for voicing Susan and B.O.B, but lost to Jim Carrey for Disney's A Christmas Carol. Monsters Vs Aliens was also nominated for Best Animated film but lost to Up. On June 24, 2009 the film won the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film.

Soundtrack[link]

All music composed by Henry Jackman, except as noted.

Other media[link]

Beside the main film, Monsters vs. Aliens franchise also includes a video game, a short film B.O.B.'s Big Break, and two television specials, Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space and Monsters vs. Aliens: Night of the Living Carrots. A TV series based on the film will air on Nickelodeon.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Monsters vs. Aliens

• Official website
• Monsters vs. Aliens at the Internet Movie Database
• Monsters vs. Aliens at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Monsters vs. Aliens at AllRovi
• Monsters vs. Aliens at Rotten Tomatoes
• Monsters vs. Aliens at Metacritic
• Monsters vs. Aliens at Box Office Mojo