Monsters and aliens competing for whom is less interesting—it’s a draw

Monsters vs. Aliens
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the “K” in DreamWorks SKG, has been touting the company’s latest picture, “Monsters vs. Aliens,” as a watershed in 3-D technology. He calls digital 3-D the third great revolution in cinema. “The first came in the twenties when silent movies became talkies,” Katzenberg explained recently. “The second came in the following decade, when we went from black-and-white to color. Now, 70 years on, we’re in the third great revolution: the new generation of 3D.”

In Katzenberg’s mind, there will be a time when 2-D cinematography will be a thing of the past, when audiences will refuse to see a movie unless things are thrown at the screen and out into the theater. “If David Lean had made ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ using these tools and techniques,” he says, “I think it would be even more extraordinary.” I can just imagine film historians, asked to name the most significant movies in history, rattling off a list similar to this: “The Birth of a Nation,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Monsters vs. Aliens.”

Katzenberg isn’t speaking as a rational lover of film but as a publicist, and as someone who will make more money off of 3-D movies than any of us will in our lifetimes. He is so overzealous to sell his movie that he has neglected to name the advent of feature animation as a major cinematic revolution: Not only was it a revolution, Mr. Katzenberg, but without it, “Monsters vs. Aliens” would never have been possible, 3-D or not.

Yes, 3-D has come a long way in the last few years. This movie utilizes an advanced digital technique called InTru3D, which creates a crisper, more enhanced 3-D effect, and it results in some of the best 3-D I’ve ever seen in a megaplex at the mall. I’ve always felt 3-D to be a gimmick. For me, it doesn’t add from the mechanics of the film, but distracts from them. But Katzenberg says InTru3D will allow “artists to tell a more compelling story and give filmgoers a more exciting, immersive 3-D movie experience.”

I don’t buy into any of this, because if InTru3D really makes a film more compelling, exciting and immersive, why is “Monsters vs. Aliens” so painfully pedestrian? The answer, I think, is in the very 3-D that Katzenberg has been hyping as the Second Coming. Even though the technology has advanced, it has yet to become a necessity. This movie looks great, but the filmmakers have taken such care in crafting the effects that they’ve completely neglected to write a compelling script.

Seeing movies like this, I always try to let the kid in me take over and just enjoy the ride. This is a movie about monsters and aliens, I told myself, and they will be fighting; it’s as simple as that. The first fifteen minutes seemed promising: There are some funny nods to ‘50s B-pictures, like “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “The Blob,” some witty lines of dialogue and a couple of neat action sequences. But the film simply isn’t charming, original or engaging, and I lost interest very quickly.

The story, as thin as it is, concerns a woman named Susan Murphy (voice by Reese Witherspoon), who, on her wedding day, is struck by an asteroid, becomes radioactive and grows to be, oh, fifty feet or so. She’s detained by the government, nicknamed Ginormica and partnered with various other monsters, including a brainless lump of blue goo (Seth Rogen), a mad scientist-cockroach hybrid (Hugh Laurie) and an aquatic ape with an insatiable libido (Will Arnett).

Pretty soon, the conflict of the title is realized, and Earth is attacked by Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), a neurotic, maniacal alien bent on, you guessed it, world domination. He has armies of clones and robots, resulting in a couple of impressive scenes, including the complete destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The CGI effects are wonderful here, rich with color and detail, although the 3-D glasses tend to darken the picture.

I liked most of the voice performers, too, especially Rogen as the blob (he elevates the role from being a pale shadow of Ellen DeGeneres’ character in “Finding Nemo”), Kiefer Sutherland as a gruff Army general named W.R. Monger, and Stephen Colbert, very funny, as the staunch but clueless President. When the alien mother ship lands, he sets up a synthesizer and plays the five-note greeting from “Close Encounters,” hoping to keep it at bay.

Although “Monsters vs. Aliens” is in three dimensions, the story only has one; it’s technically impressive, but it has nothing original to say. Films like “Toy Story” and “The Incredibles” balanced striking visuals with unique characters and plots, and here it’s obvious that all the care and attention went into the special effects. I could just bow down and say that the movie is good for the kids, but since this is supposed to be a great revolution in the history of cinema, I don’t think I can be so kind.

Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. Written by Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Rob Letterman, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Featuring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd and Stephen Colbert. PG; 94m.

A screenwriter for every Christmas

Four Christmases
Review by Nathan Weinbender

It took four people to write the script for “Four Christmases”—one guy to watch every holiday comedy ever made, another guy to note every cliché of the genre, a third guy to assemble those clichés into a story, and a fourth guy to put it all into screenplay format. I’m guessing they took turns typing.

The movie stars Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as a disgruntled couple who escape to tropical locales every Christmas, telling their respective families that no, they can’t come over because, darn the luck, they’re doing humanitarian work in Burma.

This year, they’re headed for Fiji, but they’re stranded at the airport because of heavy fog. When they’re interviewed on the local news, their families see them on TV, and now they have no choice but to visit their loved ones. Since both Vaughn and Witherspoon’s parents are divorced, we are treated to four separate Christmases, all in the span of a very long 24 hours.

Before I go any further, let’s look at the movie’s cast. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon are big stars—talented, appealing, bankable. Their parents are played by Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen, all of whom have Oscars. That’s five Oscars if you also count Witherspoon’s.

What could have possibly drawn so many talented people to this script, which plays like a dour TV sitcom? Money, I suppose, and perhaps the prospect of not actually having to act.

The actors all play variations on characters they’ve played a hundred times before: Duvall is the backwoods hick, Spacek is the grass-roots bohemian chick, Steenburgen is the upper-crust socialite right out of “Good Housekeeping” and Voight is the voice of reason. How uninspired.

Wouldn’t it have been more fun had they switched the casting around, so that Voight was cursing and swilling beer and Steenburgen was eating pot brownies with her son’s best friend, who is also her lover?

Also in the mix are Jon Favreau, who recently directed “Iron Man,” and country star Tim McGraw, who play Vaughn’s uncouth brothers. They’re Ultimate Fighters, thick-necked and tattooed, and they put Vaughn in headlocks and wrestle him to the floor. Har-de-har.

And Dwight Yoakam plays Steenburgen’s beau, a preacher whose congregations are more like Super Bowl half-time shows. His character has the most potential—naturally, the script eschews his scenes in favor of brainless slapstick involving Witherspoon being urped on by babies and Vaughn falling off the roof while trying to install a satellite dish.

“Four Christmases” is obvious from beginning to end, and, in its desperation for laughs, it frequently substitutes chaos for comedy. Listen, future comedy writers: It’s not funny to have your characters just scream at one another, especially if they all do it at the same time so that, if they do happen to say anything clever, we can’t make it out over the pandemonium on screen.

I imagine that the actors in this movie could have come up with a smarter, funnier screenplay themselves.

Grade: C

Directed by Seth Gordon. Written by Matt R. Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Starring Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam. PG-13; 82m.