YOU might have thought it was a sequel to Monsters Inc.
You might have thought they made the toys for the kids’ fast food meal first, then added the movie later.
Surely you couldn’t mistake it for Aliens Vs Predator ...
Whatever your take on Monsters Vs Aliens, let’s put on the record here and now it’s one of the funniest, smartest, sassiest and entertaining-est pictures of the year.
Original? Perhaps not.
This DreamWorks Animation extravaganza is built around a ragbag of “heroes” ripped off from 1950s sci-fi movies – Ginormica, the not-quite 50 Foot Woman ... a blue blob called BOB ... giant insect Insectosaurus (Mothra) ... a scientist with a human body and an insect’s head (for The Fly read Dr Cockroach, PhD) ... and a green, slimy Missing Link (The Creature From The Black Lagoon).
It also riffs on the same kind of retro-movie humour that will be familiar to fans of Toy Story 2, The Incredibles and/ or Mars Attacks. But its heart is in the right place and the laughs come thick and fast, along with the spectacular action set pieces.
The voice cast is strong, with Seth Rogen bagging most of the guffaws as blobby BOB and Reese Witherspoon to the fore as the tall chick, Susan.
You know how you can feel a bit frazzled on your wedding day? All that hard work and seemingly endless arrangements and family feuds, then suddenly it’s upon you?
Well, down-to-earth, sweet-as-apple-pie Susan Murphy gets frazzled on her wedding day – by a falling meteor, which sends her media profile through the roof but flattens the enthusiasm of her groom-to-be, conceited weatherman Derek (Paul Rudd).
Locked away in a secure government facility, ginormous Susan and her monstrous new pals are quickly unleashed on an invading extra-terrestrial menace.
The US President, voiced by Stephen Colbert as a hilarious, music-loving, coffee-quaffing numbskull, has, unsurprisingly, failed to save the world. Desperate measures are called for.
The big baddie, Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), has four eyes, two arms, six legs and a fine line in B-Movie dialogue.
Spectacular action sequences include the American military versus a giant alien robot (beautiful attention to detail here, with “ET go home” etched on the US missiles and shimmering heat hazes as the jets circle the lumbering behemoth) followed by Ginormica and Insectosaurus versus said robot at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
The 3D works fine and there’s a great opening gag when someone fires a paddle ball out into the audience a la the 1953 3D movie House Of Wax (directed by Andre De Toth, starring Vincent Price).
But, like Bolt before it, Monsters Vs Aliens would play perfectly fine in 2D.
And, for those of us with four eyes already, popping your 3D specs over your other specs can result in a double image which makes the whole gimmick seem ... well, gimmicky.