Monsters Vs Aliens (2009)

Saw Monsters Vs Aliens, an animated film about an epic battle between a team of monsters and an alien.  The film has essentially two acts: in the first a woman is exposed to space-based magic which makes her grow to enormous sizes.  She's scooped up by the government and kept in a gigantic holding pen with a few other monsters, all loosely based on 1950s creature-features (the blob, the creature from the black lagoon, the fly.)  Then, in the second act, the alien attacks and the motley crew of monsters have to defend the earth.

So, I didn't really dig this film.  It was supposed to be a comedy, but it wasn't very funny.  It was filmed in the very early days of 3d cinema and you can clearly tell.  In an opening scene, someone's playing a paddle-ball game and paddling the rubber ball directly into the camera.  The film often plays around with sizes.  The giant woman (who is the main character) is sometimes dwarfed by a yet-more-gigantic thing and I suppose that might have been really neat to see in 3d.  On my 2d screen however, it's just sort of arbitrary, like those school-yard fights you'd have about whose imaginary character was more powerful ("My guy has infinity strength!"  "Well mine has infinity plus one!"  etc.)

The film's supposed to be an action comedy but I didn't find the jokes very amusing and I didn't find the action very gripping.  I think it suffers a lot for being on the small screen.  I found the emotional arc of the main character lady much more interesting.  It is this: initially she's a very traditional woman, minimizing herself and her desires for the sake of others in her life, however when she becomes literally huge and powerful, she discovers that she is capable and worthy of regard, and is capable of being more than someone else's support.  Very fulfilling and well-pulled-off.

Apart from that, I'm not sure what else to talk about with this film.  Nothing's very interesting or fun or funny.  It reminded me of Bee Movie, in as much as it feels half-baked and sort of cheap.  I'm sure a ton of work went into this, but the end product is not very good.