Current mood:	annoyed
Entry tags:	cinema, movie biz, movie review, screenwriting craft

MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS
The voice talent on MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS is good. Lots of clever jokes for the characters, especially for Seth Rogen's Bob, a genial spineless creature with no brain but much empathy. The evil alien invading earth was voiced in a fun way by Rainn Wilson, who has awesome comedic timing. As Susan aka Ginormica, Reece Witherspoon is sweet and sympathetic, as you'd guess.

But the story is kinda obvious, once the premise is established. The arc of Susan, the main character, feels like a so-what? Where you got choked up in WALL-EE and THE INCREDIBLES and even an old animation, LILO AND STITCH, this didn't work the emotions much at all.

Spoilers! Turn away now!
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When a woman character is presented as living to get married, that's a weak, old fashioned view of women. So we're supposed to think the screenwriter got enlightened and made that weak woman into a huge, strong giant. Only it wasn't anything she did; a meteorite hit her. She flapped her arms a lot when she was using her strength to save people on a bridge, so she wasn't very heroic then either.

She never really added anything to the group of monster heroes they didn't already have. Insectosaurus was already big (10x bigger than her) and strong. She didn't bring a woman's touch to their lab/cell environment. She didn't bring intuition to the planning. She did only the things a 50-foot-woman would just do anyway.

And at a key point, she says, with her chin out, "My name's not Susan. It's Ginormica!"

Well, Ginormica is your slave name, Susan. So why you acting all tough and self-realized about that??! Really, the military who abducts her and jails her gives her that name. The phallocentric, woman-hating military!

Better that she'd developed a talent of the normal-sized Susan into a super strength once she was 50 feet tall. Better that she come up with her own new name that reinforced that fully actualized new self. Now THAT would've been a good emotional arc for a character.