Monsters vs. Aliens Character Sheets
DreamWorks Animation Film Stars Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie
Now that Kung Fu Panda is happily raking in the dough in theatres ($361,030,890 at last count, $206,898,748 coming from domestic box office), DreamWorks Animation is starting to pound the drum for its next CGI animated movie, the 3-D comedy Monsters vs. Aliens.
Film School Rejects managed to score a first look at the animated flick, and several images of the central characters, and they're looking pretty freakin' cool.
Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Colbert in Monsters vs. Aliens
The central premise of the flick is as follows: when Earth is threatened by an alien invasion (looking suspiciously like the villains from Mars Attacks!), The President (Stephen Colbert) orders General W.R. Monger (Keifer Sutherland) to send a motley group of monsters to combat the evil aliens.
Here are the central characters from Monsters vs. Aliens, and the actors who portray them.
- B.O.B. (voiced by Seth Rogen) is a culinary experiment gone wrong, the result of scientists trying to create a tomato with ranch dressing-flavour. He's big, and he's blue, and he's voiced by Seth Rogen, who also pulled voice acting duty in Kung Fu Panda. Any questions?
- Dr. Cockroach PhD. (Hugh Laurie) appears to be a cross between The Fly and House (gee, who plays the central character in that last show?). A brilliant scientist whose attempt to give humans the survival capacity of cockroaches ended up giving him a tiny body and a cockroach head.
- The Missing Link (Will Arnett) was frozen during the Ice Age, and recently thawed. The U.S. Government took him in hand after he discovered that his favourite watering hole had been turned into a vacation resort.
- Ginormica (Reese Witherspoon) used to be a regular California girl named Susan Murphy. However, she suddenly grew to be 49' 11" tall when a meteor hit her on her wedding day (best not to ask what happened to her dress).
- Insectosaurus was the result when scientists hit a grub with radiation (those scientists are batting 0 for 3, aren't they?). Despite the fact that Insectosaurus is 350 feet tall, he's still a baby at heart.
The other sheets are for Gallaxhar (The Office's Rainn Wilson), The President and General W.R. Monger (apparently, he's "your stereotypically crazy old general who has lost his touch with reality."). Countless military types are currently cursing George C. Scott for making Dr. Strangelove's Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson into a cinematic cliché.
Will Monsters vs. Aliens Be Any Good?
Naturally, the art looks freakin' good for this flick, which isn't surprising considering that all DreamWorks films look incredible on the artistic front. The major question becomes: can the current #2 CGI studio get it together on the story side? That's been Pixar's big edge in winning the CGI animation wars, and the main reason why the studio has never released a bomb.
(BTW, WALL-E has pulled $187,317,314 since it came out on June 27th. That means the flick has barely made back its studio costs but hasn't yet crossed the $200 million mark.)
Right now, this film is getting the benefit of the doubt. If the trailers show some sparks, then DreamWorks may be back on track after a disasterous 2006. Or it might not . . . stay tuned for further information about this flick.
Monsters vs. Aliens comes out on March 27, 2009.
Fun Fact: at $206 million and counting, Kung Fu Panda is now the most domestically profitable DreamWorks Animation film that doesn't have the word Shrek in the title. In other words, count on an upcoming Kung Fu Panda 2, 3, 4 . . .
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