Collegiate Times

Is it bad when a movie is outshined by the trailers that preceded it? Is it a reflection on the quality of the movie previews or an indication that the feature presentation just wasn't that good? For "Monsters vs. Aliens," the latest entry into the bloated field of computer-generated family films, the answer is the latter. That's not to say the previews weren't amazing. The trailer for October's "Where the Wild Things Are," for example, had more raw emotion, creativity and visual splendor crammed in two minutes than "MvA" displayed in an hour and a half.

But I digress.

Dreamworks Animation, the makers of the "Shrek" and "Madagascar" series, largely works in well-trodden territory of cute and approachable family fare. A crowd-pleasing tale of good versus evil pits, as the title suggests, monsters against aliens. The monsters have been under wraps by the U.S. government for decades but remain mankind's only hope in the face of the nefarious invading aliens.

Things get dicey with the inclusion of Susan. She seemingly lives the perfect life and is about to marry the perfect man until a meteorite, laced with radioactive material, hits her on her wedding day. Minutes later she tests the wedding chapel's structural integrity by growing an extra 45 feet, taking the rooftop with her. She's joined by a motley crew of science experiments gone wrong. Dr. Cockroach, for instance, was once a mad scientist who tried to give himself the indestructible properties of a cockroach ... only to turn into a life-sized cockroach. B.O.B., short for Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzoate, came into being after food scientists injected chemically-altered ranch dressing into a chemically-altered tomato.

Apparently that's not the recipe for an intelligent creature because he is a blue blob of brainless goo. The story, jokes, action, dialog, pretty much the entire thing, are immediately forgettable. Although, B.O.B. falling in love with a mold of Jell-O is funny due to his gleeful ignorance. There's something about the aliens wanting Susan's radioactive properties and a giant robot fight in San Francisco, but honestly, I can only remember that hilarious Jell-O mold!

It is becoming a clich nowadays that every review of a non-Pixar movie draws comparisons to that animation house's remarkable body of work. Still, it bears repeating the substantially different approaches companies like Dreamworks take to their animated films compared to Pixar.

To Pixar, the word "animation" is not a film genre synonymous with "kid's film." Rather, it is a medium through which any story can be told. "Ratatouille" and "WALL-E" are clear examples of this as they tackle nebulous topics, like subtle prejudice and selfless devotion, with rats and robots. Every film carries a timeless quality because of the film's humor and themes.

With a few notable exceptions like "Kung Fu Panda" and the first "Shrek," Dreamworks, like the mad scientists that created B.O.B., inject one incongruous type of film into another. Kids want to see the cute and silly creatures. Jokes that appeal to them consist of physical slapstick, typically of the painful variety, made comical by googly eyes and over-the-top sound effects. And to prevent the parents from nodding off, the screenwriters play up the innuendos, word play and pop culture references that immediately date the film. The end result is a woefully inconsistent effort where kids and adults are left divided over the film's humor.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" commits these cardinal sins. The animation is overdone and lacks the graceful subtlety that makes these kinds of films infinitely re-watchable. And far worse, jokes fall flat left and right. The dialog was hard to hear over the audible groans following jokes like The Missing Link making this zinger of an observation following his release from Area 51: "Has the Earth gotten hotter? I'd like to know that. That would be a very 'convenient truth.'" And the award for most labored joke of the year goes to...

There was once a time, not too long ago, when computer animation was a signal of something new and exciting. That novelty has since worn off, so poor writing has nothing to hide behind. "Monsters vs. Aliens," unfortunately, has very little to offer, but it may be enough to hold you off until May's "Up." And speaking of "Up," now there was a memorable trailer that ran before the movie!