Monsters Vs. Aliens Trailer
DreamWorks Animation Film Stars Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie
Nov 4, 2008
Is DreamWorks Animation on to another winner with Monsters vs. Aliens? After watching the first trailer, the jury's still out.
Movie-List recently scored a 30-second spot for the Glendale studio's sole release for 2009 and while some of the jokes are a little stale, plenty of them work. If DreamWorks hasn't piled all the best jokes into the trailer, it could be an okay film.
What's It About?
When an evil alien tyrant named Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) invades Earth, US General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) assembles a rag-tag group of "monsters" to help defend the planet. Super-tall Susan Murphy AKA Ginormica (Reese Witherspoon), 20,000-year-old Missing Link (Will Arnett), B.O.B. the Blob (Seth Rogen), Dr. Cockroach PhD (Hugh Laurie), and the massive, cuddly Insectosaurus are humanity's last hope against the alien menace.
Not a lot of originality here: the designs for both B.O.B and the alien tank look extremely similar (basically a bell with a single eye in the middle), and there are a lot of elements lifted from previous animated flicks like Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Monsters Inc, not to mention 1950's monster movies.
About 6 out of 10 jokes work in this trailer, but some of them (General W.R. Monger's character, "E.T. go home" on the missile) try way too hard. Rogen's character could get incredibly annoying in larger doses; he's basically there to get into silly situations and be the dumb sidekick.
A thought: will Dr. Cockroach betray his fellow monsters and hook up with Gallaxhar at around the 2/3 mark? He is a mad scientist with a British accent after all, and he doesn't seem to have a lot to do.
How Will Monsters vs. Aliens Do in Theatres?
It's clear that DreamWorks Animation is still marketing bubble gum, even as Pixar's films edge towards richer narratives. Even though WALL-E got the critical love, summer audiences were clearly more into the wacky antics of Kung Fu Panda. Clearly DreamWorks' attitude is: let Pixar take the awards, we just want the box office.
Up, with its meditations on aging and second chances, could get the same treatment from Monsters vs. Aliens that WALL-E got from Kung Fu Panda. Summer audiences may decide that the Pete Docter/Bob Peterson film is too cerebral for their tastes, which will play right into DreamWorks' hands.
No one will ever accuse Monsters vs. Aliens of being a great film; the question becomes whether or not it's a fun film.
Another part of its success rests on whether audiences will finally get into "stereoscopic 3D" the way filmmakers are hoping. The process has been associated with cheap thrills and cheesy monsters for the past 60 years; will this be the decade that 3D finally gets some respect?
Filmmakers, trying to come up with a way to get people watching films in theatres as opposed to on their computer screens, have seized on 3D as the Great White Hope. James Cameron went 3D with his latest action-adventure flick, Avatar. Considering his previous film was a little-seen gem called Titanic, there's a fair amount of interest in his new movie. Will that 3D love spill onto Monsters vs. Aliens? Or will it go down as yet another 3D failure?
Find out when Monsters vs. Aliens invades theatres on March 27, 2009.
