Monsters vs. Aliens
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This week, we saw a movie that was a little more light-hearted. As great as I thought Watchmen was and as interesting as Knowing was, I thought my movie-going partner might need a little break from intense movies. Monsters vs. Aliens provided that break for us. It was also nice to see a movie where parents were bringing their children and having a nice day together as a family.
When the monsters are introduced, you can’t help but think of the older monster movies that these monsters were obviously derived from. We look back at those movies now and chuckle at how ridiculous we think they were, because who would react in the way people do in those movies? It was very entertaining to see these monsters from older horror movies come together and turn out to be just a bunch of goofy characters.
The references that Dreamworks’s movies make to other movies and events makes them so much more worthwhile to watch. It’s fun to see something you know from another movie or hear a line that you recognize and it makes you feel special when maybe only you and a few other people in the theatre chuckle about it. The third Shrek movie did a great job of this. Monsters vs. Aliens had this also, but not as much as Shrek did. I had a pretty good laugh when the President of the U.S. approached the giant robot and played the tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then to follow it up with the Beverly Hills Cop theme was hysterical!
Stephen Colbert playing the President was genius! I couldn’t think of a better choice to play the President of the U.S. If only we can get him to play one in a non-animated movie! Seth Rogen and Rainn Wilson were also great choices to play characters in this movie. I figured out that B.O.B. was Seth Rogen, but didn’t realize that Gallaxhar was Rainn Wilson until the ending credits, and that made it all the more hilarious (coming from a big fan of The Office).
This movie wasn’t a Shrek or a Wall-E, but it was an overall entertaining movie and well worth the money we spent to see it. Gotta love going to matinee showings!
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Teri said:
This is the part where I’m supposed to rant and rave about the movie. So, here I go.
First of all, why is it that I am always the one to sit behind the kicking kid/crazy thrashing concert-goer, etc? I find myself living the Ellen Degeneres skit in which I give a quick look over my shoulder, hoping to make the offender stop. Of course. . . this is unsuccessful. This is followed up by a sugar-sweet voiced request to the . . . 1 year old? 2 year old?. . . which goes along the lines of “Be careful, k?” (Insert ridiculously big — and also tight — smile here.) . . .which. . . did diddly squat toward a direct effect but did indirectly earn the kid a good smack from his dad. (Unfortunately,this traumatized me a bit, making me debate whether it was worth mentioning the annoying action or if I should just suck it up like I usually do, pretending I don’t notice anything and/or I actually enjoy being kicked repeatedly in the back of my seat.)
I digress. So, I was immediately struck by how the spouse of one of the main characters (one soon-to-be-monster) was a complete jerk (PG terms here). (No question about it, this guy was an a. . .arrogant man.) It was blatant enough that I felt the need to lean over to my partner and say: “This movie must be geared toward women.”
I did later question my perception of the bent of the movie, however, because of the character of the army general in charge of the monsters. He was a likable, intelligent sort of fellow. This impressed me because military characters don’t seem to come out smelling like roses these days.
On the other hand, men lose points again through the depiction of incredible ineptitude in the President of the United States — the most powerful man in the country (supposedly).
Sidenote question: Will character presidents always be white men? At least he wasn’t an old white man. I was curious to see if things would change in this movie and was a bit disappointed.
So. . . assuming this movie was geared toward women and women power, in the form of Ginormica (the woman with the jerk husband), what exactly was the image that this movie was trying to convey? I was certainly struck by Ginormica’s figure. Her tiny waste, large curvy hips, and long legs reminded me much of Barbie, or perhaps more of Bratz (due to the smaller upper body and large eyes). Maybe you’ve seen that e-mail that’s been passed around a few times about Barbie’s body requiring her to walk on all fours? Bratz hasn’t gotten much positive feedback either due her suggestive, scanty attire.
SPOILER
What I think I’m supposed to have learned from this movie is that 1)women should look like Bratz dolls and wear spandex, and then they will learn how to be self-empowered 2) men are stupid and self-serving unless they are in the military 3)even a highly advanced alien with seemingly unsurpassable technology and his millions of clones will be thwarted in the end by some highly improbable miracle so that all the little kicking kids and the young-at-heart kids like me can go home happy.April 4th, 2009 at 12:14 am