My Kind of Aliens and Monsters! (Monsters vs Aliens (DVD))

Member Name: sewbizzie

Product:	Monsters vs Aliens (DVD)
Date:	01/11/09 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good storyline, great animation, kids love it

Disadvantages: None from me

My boys have been nagging me to buy them this DVD but I was hoping that they would have forgotten about it on their holidays but no joy. On our shopping trip today they saw a massive display of the DVD so obviously I had to treat them to it!

Susan is woken at 5am by her mother and friends as it is her wedding day but things do not go to plan for her when she is outside the church and gets hit by a meteor and as she is standing at the alter she is glowing green and suddenly grows to a massive size. The army come and take her away to a secure place which no one knows about.

It is at this secret place that Susan meets her fellow monsters, B.O.B, Dr Cockroach and The Missing Link. She soon discovers that due to her size she is considered to be a monster herself and is destined to spend the rest of her life in this place. Things soon change for Sarah and the other monsters when an alien ship lands on Earth and the General who is in charge of the monsters talks to the president and suggests that the monsters are used to destroy this alien.

Will Sarah and her monster friends be able to destroy the alien and will she ever get her old life back or is she destined to be a monster forever?

Well I will admit that this film did look watch able from the trailer which I had seen but I would not have been my first choice. The storyline was good but very predictable which find with all children's films. I though that the characters were all very good and despite being called monsters there was nothing at all scary about any of them. The one which was my favourite had to be B.O.B as he had no brain as at times did actually make me laugh with the daft things he did. I found the voices of each of the characters to be very fitting to the appearance. The once which stood out for me were Reece Witherspoon who voiced Susan and Hugh Laurie who voiced Dr Cockroach. The actors who voiced the animated characters were able to give them so much character and personality from just the vocals they did which did make the characters more believable and indeed likable.

The animation in the film was very good which s what I would expect from DreamWorks and I was impressed with the standard it was. There was a lot of detail in all of the shots and a lot of time and effort must have been given to creating such realistic places and scenery throughout. I also enjoyed how the characters were made to be very human like and all had their own individual characteristics.

The music throughout the film was great and quite varied. I found it was all suitable for the places in which it was used and did help add drama to certain parts of the film. The film was set in the present time and despite being animated it looked good and I liked the design of the alien ships and inside the space crafts. They all fitted the film very well.

The DVD which we have does have some bonus features which include:-

Modern Monster Movie-Making
Three Never Before Seen Deleted Scenes
DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox
Filmmakers Commentary
The Tech of Monsters vs. Aliens

We did not take the time to watch any of the bonus features so I ma unable to make comment on them.

The running time of this film is 90 minutes and I found this to be a good length. My eldest who is 7 managed to sit through the whole film and he did enjoy it but my 5 year old did keep getting up and wondering around and my 2 year old had no interest in it at all. The certificate is a PG as there is some mild threat and comic fight scenes and I have to say that I have no objection is letting any aged child sit and watch this film.

The DVD is available from Tesco at the moment for £8 if you spend £20 or more in store on shopping but if not then it is the full price of £12. I found this to be an OK price but I really don't like paying such a high price tag for films and usually wait for them to be reduced but as this was for my boys then I had no choice.

Overall I am going to recommend this as a good family film which has some good funny moments for the children and a decent storyline which adults will also enjoy and in the words of my Eldest it was a 'cool film'!

Summary: The monsters are called upon to defend against the Alien ship