Monsters vs. Aliens [Blu-ray]

I'm not critiquing the film itself. If you want to know if plays it does in the US just fine. The 3D in the is really fantastic though with a lot of moments with great depth and scale being used in creative ways. If your looking for that film where it actually has something where it looks like something is coming out of the screen this totally does. This arrived as scheduled and I'm definitely happy with product.

Susan is a young bride to be, getting ready for her big day when a meteor strikes her and she finds herself glowing and growing out of proportion, becoming almost fifty feet tall. The military arrives soon after and after she is sedated, she awakes and finds herself locked away in a top secret facility along with other monsters who are either missing links or the subjects of experiments past and her name has been changed to Ginormica. At first, she is definitely not okay with it, and is more than anxious to get back to the life she had, but over time finds the monsters she is held with are not quite the monsters they appear to be as they begin to get acquainted. A chance for freedom arises when the monsters are asked to take on a giant alien robot and they set out for the Golden Gate Bridge where Susan earns her place as Ginormica as she almost single handedly takes it on in order to save the people on the bridge. They defeat the robot and earn their freedom at last, but when Susan tries to reconnect with her old life she discovers the man she almost married is on a fast track to promotion and considers her being a monster a big detriment to his future success and he wants nothing more to do with her. The other monsters find freedom has a hollow ring to it as well, because they aren't really accepted anywhere. It is here that Susan has found her calling as a monster--and is kidnapped by the alien seeking to gain the element that gives Susan her powers and to invade and conquer her world. The monsters then must band together to save one of their own, and stop the invasion, if they can. The monsters here are all straight from the B-movies of the Fifties, B.O.B. is a thinly disguised Blob, Dr. Cockroach is straight from "the Fly". The Missing Link is "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and Insectasaurus, is from "Mothra." Ginormica is from "Attack of the 50 ft. Woman" . This is meant to be a parody and the movie pulls it off rather well. While this may not be on a par with other movies by DreamWorks, it is still fun to watch and worth a look.

Strong female leads - what more could you ask for. Every kid should watch

Perfect for stocking stuffers

We got this on Blu Ray and it looks amazing. The animation was just flat out great and in the HD format the characters and environments just come to life. Especially a screen in San Fransisco has a tremendous amount of detail.The story and characters are all very well written, extremely well animated, and the actors did a great job of bringing their voices to life. There was a lot of good clean humor with an easy to follow plot. I especially liked our heroine giant as she did a wonderful job with a well written character. I like how this character grows over the course of the movie and does not fit any female stereotypes or played as a ditz but is instead a strong and courageous woman. We need more characters like that.The extra movie for BOB's birthday was great. It was really funny and gave a little more back story on the main characters. It was also in 3D was was fun.The only downside is the film lacked 3D for the main film even though it had it in the theatres and comes with glasses for BOBs birthday film... but no 3D option for the main movie. We are not really big into 3D or anything but it would be nice to at least have the option since that is how they made the movie. Coraline offered both versions for example.Overall we love the film and it just looks so crisp and clear on blu ray. I would have given it 5 stars had the movie come in 3D. I am sure over the years we will watch this one a bunch with the kids.

Lots of fun.

I'm not the target audience for this film, and however charming it comes across, it's still pretty formulaic, and in this way fairly insulting. Mom gets the fifty-foot woman treatment, who is then induced into a struggle she didn't want and isn't much prepared for.How about letting dad get the gigantism treatment, or junior, or sis, or Fido?To me this film smacks of "Mars needs moms", just with a slightly different story to it. As a Bay Area denizen it was kind of neat seeing the SF Bay Area getting to star as a backdrop once more. Toss in Modesto, Fresno, and maybe even Lodi and the state capitol or Sacramento, and you got my childhood and university years all wrapped up.It's a witty film, but it's predictable to a fault. Mom gets zapped into monster funkyness, and gets paired up with unlikely critters to save the world. The truth is your average "love America" mom would probably get recruited by the NSA and teamed up with crazy smart and strong people who were also recruited by the feds to tackle some threat. That's the allegory.Does it work? I'm not so sure. I can't remember the last time I saw a tall handsome strong dude get to be the hero. What, no since the 1950s or something. That's an important observation because those people exist, usually in the form of fire fighters or law enforcement. To me the "unlikely hero" is so cliché as to be insulting and expectant. "Wow, I bet you never guessed MOM would be the hero … HUH?!?!" Well, yeah, I did.Still, for all that, it has a kind of charm to it, but I'm just burnt out on empowerment of women themes and unlikely hero themes being shoe horned into CGI extravaganzas. So much so that I simply can't take it anymore. Ergo, I do not recommend this film.I would give it one star, but like so much "empower females and unlikely hero" movies, it is technically competent, even if the toll booth at the SF End of the Golden Gate wasn't rendered … at least Market, Kearny, Geary and Van Ness got some cameos.If I see one more "mom's the hero, nerd, geeks and oddballs unite!" film, I'll puke my guts out.There are better movies out there.

Very good product for the price

a+++++++++++goodseller

A CGI cartoon movie that is both a spoof of and an affectionate homage to B-picture monster movies from the 1950's.Susan is just an ordinary lady, and she is about to marry Derek, an upwardly mobile tv presenter. But on her wedding day a meteor strike turns her hair white and makes her very very tall indeed.Captured by the military and rechristened Ginormica, she finds herself in a holding facility with other monsters rounded up by the army over the years. Mad scientist and human mind in indestructible body Dr. Cockroach, gelatinous blob B.O.B. and creature from the black lagoon style monster link. Plus the giant insect insectasaurus.Seemingly destined to be locked away for the rest of her life and to never get things back to the way they were, her life is changed forever when the owners of the meteor come looking for it. Who can save the human race from alien attack? The monsters can.Adopting an interestingly angular style of animation this takes a few minutes to get used to, and then there's a fair bit of exposition and character introduction to get through first. But suddenly about twenty minutes in, when all that is out of the way and the first of several very well executed and designed action sequences takes place, this becomes very watchable indeed. Now that you're used to the characters all the humour - which comes out of character interaction and behaviour rather than random gags - becomes very funny and the pace of it never lets us up. Added to which there's a fairly decent story which provides a good amount of eye catching spectacle along the way.The obvious 'just be yourself' message is fine, and it's never hammered home. Once you get into this it becomes a thoroughly entertaining romp.And keep watching during the end credits for one extra scene.This is the single disc dvd edition.Languages and subtitles are as follows:Languages: English.Subtitles: English.Extras are:Modern monster movie making: a seventeen minute long making of feature with shots of the production and interviews with cast and crew. An entertaining watch and some interesting technical stuff about 3D in there. Along with some very brief flashing images so epileptics be careful.The tech of monsters vs aliens: a seven minute long feature about the computers and computer programmes used in the animation. Which praises them so much it could be seen as blatant product placement, no matter how worthy the sentiments.Three deleted scenes that run for five minutes all in all, and can be watched all in a row or one at a time. The first two are storyboards only and not animated but the last one is, although they all have a finished soundtrack. The first does fill in one minor plot detail that wasn't in the final cut of the film, and the other two are pretty good.A commentary from the filmmakers.Dreamworks animation video jukebox: songs from other movies from the production company that can be watched in a row or all together.And on the main menu of the disc moving the down key on the dvd remote control will bring the cursor atop a part of the screen that says DO NOT PRESS and light up a new icon. Clicking on that will play a small batch of trailers. All of which are by now a bit out of date.Good film. Good dvd.

An excellent kids film, it manages to mix into the plot very well 1950s sci-fi B movies (attack of the 50ft woman, it conquered the world, earth v the flying saucers) with some modern sci-fi films (close encounters, independance day, fantastic four) it won't take much to spot them.Theres some great actors doing the voices like most animated films these days. The story moves along at a good pace and managed to hold my son's interest whilst also keeping me ammused spotting all the scenes from other films. The story is perdictable enough though this doesn't detract from it's enjoyment.

Monsters vs Aliens is a really fun family film.A meteor lands on earth and the substance goes into Judy who is just going to get married but fails because she becomes the 50 foot woman.She gets taken to a government facility that holds others like her.The alien who wants the substance that went into her sends a robot which they defeat so he goes himself and all chaos happens.Great film for all the family.