monsters vs. aliens

Monsters, aliens and Seth Rogen's voice-what else do you need? Apparently a lot more, if Dreamwork's Monsters vs. Aliens is any indication.

Susan (Reese Witherspoon) is having some last minute thoughts about her minutes-away marriage to cheesy and selfish TV weatherman Derek (Paul Rudd) when a meteor smacks her in the face. Dazed, she stumbles up to the church and down the aisle. All is going according to plan until she starts glowing, sprouts white hair and grows 60 feet tall-putting those so-called Bridezillas on WE to shame.

Susan, now named "Ginormica," is thrown into a super-secret, government-controlled prison created in the 1950s to hide monsters from the dutiful, tax-paying "Joe and Jane" American public. There, Ginormica meets fellow monsters Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), blue blob B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), womanizing half-lizard The Missing Link (Will Arnett) and Insectosaurus, a creature that looks like a giant Furby with scorpion pinchers and a drug problem.

Luckily for the monsters, a UFO lands on US territory, sent by tentacled alien Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) who is after the meteor that monster-ized Susan. Welcoming the UFO alongside the military, President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert) makes his own progressive attempt at peaceful negotiations with the aliens, playing the Close Encounters theme on an electric keyboard. Cue the monsters' call to defeat the aliens, hence the creative title.

Despite a few hysterical bits and Seth Rogen's consistent hilarity, the film cannot lift itself above mediocrity. It succeeds in sending a subtle social message about women in the workplace, but erases all the progress it makes with some blunt, clichéd political statements.

Intermittently entertaining, Monsters vs. Aliens ultimately falls flat but might be worth it in 3-D and/or the right state of mind.