REVIEW: Only kids will find fun in 3-D 'Monsters'

An editor once told me, "When you review a movie, you should make a strong attempt to put yourself into the head of the most likely target audience," especially prescient advice when reviewing children's films.

But kids don't read movie reviews, parents do. And those parents are looking for little more than whether the movie is appropriate and whether their children will be sufficiently entertained. So on the outset, let me say, "Mom and Dad, your kids are going to love ‘Monsters vs. Aliens.' But I'm afraid I can't say the same for you."

For a 3-D movie, "Monsters vs. Aliens" is appallingly one-dimensional. They say you should always plan on something big going wrong on your wedding day. But the last thing Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) expected to happen on the happiest day of her life was being hit by a radioactive meteorite. Nor did she expect to suddenly grow 50 feet tall. She's captured by the military, labeled "Ginormica" and thrown into a top-secret prison reserved for monsters, run by the aptly named General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). There she meets other captured monsters: the brilliant Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), half man, half bug; The Missing Link (Will Arnett), an ungainly humanoid/amphibian hybrid; B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a gelatinous blob; and the 350-foot grub Insectosaurus.

Just as Susan begins to accept the fact that she will spend the rest of her life in a cell, a mysterious alien robot lands on Earth and begins ravaging the planet. Operating under the judicious philosophy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the incompetent U.S. president (Stephen Colbert) orders Gen. Monger to release the monsters.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" is lame in all three dimensions. The 3-D effects are all this underachieving film has going for it. While gimmicks are expected and even encouraged in a production like this, they should not be expected to carry the film. "Monsters vs. Aliens" - especially its action-packed finale - is sure to delight children (it looks impressive in both 2-D and 3-D), but it fails spectacularly for anyone past elementary school age. The kids are given endless sight gags but very few jokes by way of the script; the dialogue is reserved almost exclusively for adults. However, one joke after another, aimed straight for the most obvious and therefore tedious targets, arrives stillborn, dumb and weirdly unfunny. Even the superb voice cast cannot rescue this comatose script.

While it's fun seeing some of the legendary sci-fi creepies of the 1950s - the 50-Foot Woman, the Fly, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, the Blob and Mothra - brought to life as animated characters, parody can quickly go awry when the thing being parodied is already outrageous enough.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" may be pushing the technological envelope with its amazing 3-D effects, but its originality ends there.

But hey, your kids will like it.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS

Cast: Voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland, Paul Rudd and Hugh Laurie
Directors: Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon
Theaters: Hollywood, Gold Hill, Tinseltown, Cinemark, Cinemark IMAX, Chapel Hills, Carmike
Rated: PG
Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes

GRADE: C+