THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Season Of The Witch
Amer
Tron: Legacy
Machete
Let Me In
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Colbert, Keifer Sutherland, Will Arnett. Animation, USA, 100 min. Web Site.

Fifties science fiction buffs will gets a huge kick out of directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon’s charming, funny and ingeniously detailed cosmic cartoon caper. Okay the co-directors also had their separate hands in the dire SHARK TALE and SHREK 2 respectively.

So MONSTERS VS. ALIENS turning out to be such a terrific toon wasn’t always on the cards. Yet DreamWorks Animation’s valentine to B-movie creature features and MAD MEN period ‘Mad’ magazine humour is of Pixar quality in the smart scripting and superior craftsmanship departments. Five freaks of Mother Nature (caused by scientific experiments gone awry, radiation etc.), not so far removed from those classic sci-fi icons MOTHRA, THE BLOB, the 50-foot woman, THE FLY and the BLACK LAGOON Gillman, are released from US government security to stave off alien invasion. The WAR OF THE WORLDS threat comes at first from an IRON GIANT robot on a recce surveying THIS ISLAND EARTH for possible colonisation. Then from the full intergalactic clone force of the squid-like alien planet leader Gallaxhar (voiced by Rainn Wilson). Focused mainly on Ginormica (Reese Witherspoon) who finds her women’s lib resolve increasing alongside enlargement thanks to an outer space meteor, MONSTERS VS ALIENS is a constant multi-reference joy. The grainy B/W and faded Technicolor archival back-stories to how Ginormica’s monster team were discovered and captured range between delicious Toho homage to cheeky HORROR OF PARTY BEACH riffs. Not that it’s all stuck in the Cold War Fifties either as CE3K, ET and even Al Gore’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH get raked over for further sly laughs. For discerning adults and demanding children alike, the action-packed razzle-dazzle is entrancing. The Golden Gate Bridge battle styled after lurid 50s movie poster art is quite something and the replica MARS ATTACKS! bubble gum card alien designs are visually enthralling and also beautifully conjure up the atmospheres of vintage 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH/FIRST MEN IN THE MOON Ray Harryhausen.

All allusions slickly compressed and wonderfully 3D finessed by the astute co-directors. In fact, for many fans, the anorak nods to the first Fifties 3D craze will be the red and green icing on the animated cake. For not only are the opening meteor crash credits of IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE reproduced, one of the most famous HOUSE OF WAX gimmicks, the paddle ball, is too.  A great story, well told using beloved nostalgia clichés, tied up in a state-of-the-art 3D bow. It doesn’t get much better.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009
__________________________________________________________