Going into a movie like "Monsters vs. Aliens," you basically get exactly what you expect to get. Dreamworks has largely been hit or miss when it comes to its animated films, although "Kung Fu Panda" really lifted it up last year. Most, however, seem to be cynical marketing machines rather than, you know, good movies.
Although aimed squarely at children, "Monsters vs. Aliens" is a pretty good time, with plenty of clever references to sci-fi movies past to keep the adults entertained. Oftentimes when an animated film has an all-star voice cast it can be distracting, but here it's the highlight of the film. Reese Witherspoon headlines as Susan Murphy, a woman who is hit by a meteor on her wedding day and finds herself transformed into a giant. The government immediately whisks her away to a top-secret facility, where she is caged with a host of other "monsters." There's B.O.B. (Seth Rogen, a delight as always), a one-eyed blue blob with no brain, Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a mad scientist whose experiment with cockroach longevity went horribly wrong, the missing link (Will Arnett), whose name is self-explanatory, and Insectosaurus, a giant furry grub worm who doesn't talk.
It begins to look as if Susan, who has been renamed Ginormica by General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland), who runs the facility, will never escape from her government prison. That is until Earth is invaded by aliens. It turns out that the meteor that hit Susan contained a rare energy source, and the evil alien Galaxhar (Rainn Wilson) has come to retrieve it so he can complete his diabolical plan of global destruction (is there any other kind?).
So the government calls upon the monsters to stop Galaxhar in exchange for their freedom, and the ragtag band sets out to save the world any way they can.
Running a scant 94 minutes, "Monsters vs. Aliens" feels slight. And indeed it is, but it remains pretty enjoyable for its entire running time. This is cute, harmless children's entertainment that pays homage to the classic sci-fi monster movies of old: referencing everything from "Star Trek" to "Mothra" to "The Blob" to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T."
I was surprised by just how much fun it was. It's not a great film, but it passes the time well, so much so that it feels much shorter than it actually is. This is the kind of film that children and adults can enjoy together without being pandered to. I enjoyed all the little cameos (Stephen Colbert as the president is especially fun) and inside jokes (a "Code Nimoy" is issued after the first sighting of the UFO) that pepper the film. It's the small things like that that make "Monsters vs. Aliens" worth recommending. For a Saturday afternoon with your children, you could do a lot worse.