Toon Tragedy

Reese Witherspoon is the voice of Susan Murphy,a wide-eyed young bride whose wedding with an ego-centric television presenter (Paul Rudd) goes horribly wrong. Her to-be-husband informs her that their honeymoon in Paris has been cancelled,and a meteor plonks itself right on top of her as she sets out to walk the aisle. Radiation from the meteor causes her to grow so tall that she rips the roof of the church apart. The guests run helter-skelter and SWAT teams arrive to pin Susan down. She blacks out and awakens near a group of four other enormous oddities — a cockroach wearing a lab coat who claims to be a mad scientist (Hugh Laurie),a huge furry thing named Insectasaurus who can only grunt and snarl,a scaly thing called The Missing Link (Will Arnett) who has a penchant for body-building and a gelatinous blob called BOB who has a ravenous appetite. Together they form a league of extraordinary monsters that has been kept away from the public eye by the US government to avoid a public outcry.

When a tentacled,melodramatic alien Gallaxhar,voiced by Rainn Wilson,decides to attack the planet with the desire of taking it over,the service of the league is sought. Thus begins the eponymous battle between aliens and monsters.

It’s easy to admire the film’s competent design,but it’s not a great deal of fun. And it doesn’t just have the ambience of a feel-good animation film. Instead it plonks in arbitrary plot devices to help the action along,instead of explaining where the aliens have come from,or how they’re defeated. Unlike the best Aardman and Pixar films,Monsters VS Aliens’s screenplay isn’t as painstakingly constructed as its animation.

The 3-D effect might slightly enhance the overall experience for kids but can’t disguise the lack of imagination and originality that are the hallmarks of Dreamworks’ main rival.