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Monsters vs. Aliens

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Monsters vs. Aliens 2009 poster 9

Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the first installment in the Monsters vs. Aliens film series. The film was directed by Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman from a screenplay written by Letterman, Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, and the writing team of 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, the film involves a group of misfit monsters hired by the United States Armed Forces to stop the invasion of an extraterrestrial villain and save the world in exchange.

It was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion, which added $15 million to the film's budget.

Monsters vs. Aliens was released on March 27, 2009 in the United States in 2-D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D, and 4DX. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $381 million worldwide on a $175 million budget. Although not successful enough to be followed by a sequel, the film started a franchise consisting of a short film, B.O.B.'s Big Break, two television specials, Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space and Night of the Living Carrots, and a television series premiered in 2013 on Nickelodeon.

Storyline[]

Plot[]

When a meteorite from outer space hits a young California woman named Susan Murphy and turns her into a giant monster, she is taken to a secret government compound where she meets a ragtag group of monsters also rounded up over her life. As a last resort, under the guidance of Gen. W.R. Monger, on a desperate order from The President, the motley crew of Monsters is called into action to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent threatening! A DreamWorks animation.

Genres[]

  • Children's film
  • Adventure
  • Comedy
  • Science fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Animation
  • Road
  • Family film

Motion Picture Rating[]

  • Atp (Argentina)
  • G (Australia)
  • PG (Australia) (Google Play)
  • KT/EA (Belgium)
  • Livre (Brazil)
  • G (Canada)
  • TE (Chile)
  • T (Colombia)
  • U (Czechia)
  • K-7 (Finland)
  • Tous Public (France)
  • 0 (Germany)
  • K (Greece)
  • I (Hong Kong)
  • 6 (Hungary)
  • L (Iceland)
  • U (India)
  • SU (Indonesia)
  • G (Ireland)
  • ALL (Israel)
  • T (Italy)
  • G (Japan)
  • V (Lithuania)
  • U (Malaysia)
  • AA (Mexico)
  • AL (Netherlands)
  • PG (New Zealand)
  • G (New Zealand) (recommended rating)
  • G (Nigeria)
  • A (Norway) (2009, cinema rating)
  • Apt (Peru)
  • G (Philippines)
  • M/6 (Portugal)
  • 6+ (Russia)
  • G (Saudi Arabia)
  • G (Singapore)
  • G (South Africa)
  • All (South Korea)
  • A (Spain) (original rating, ICAA)
  • 7 (Sweden)
  • 7 (Switzerland) (canton of Geneva)
  • 7 (Switzerland) (canton of Vaud)
  • GP (Taiwan)
  • U (UK)
  • PG (UK) (DVD rating)
  • PG (USA)
  • P (Vietnam)

Images[]

Cast and Crew[]

Directors[]

  • Rob Letterman
  • Conrad Vernon

Writing Credits[]

  • Maya Forbes (screenplay by) &
  • Wallace Wolodarsky (screenplay by) and
  • Rob Letterman (screenplay by) and
  • Jonathan Aibel (screenplay by) &
  • Glenn Berger (screenplay by)
  • Rob Letterman (story by) &
  • Conrad Vernon (story by)

Cast[]

  • Reese Witherspoon - Susan Murphy (Ginormica) (voice)
  • Seth Rogen - B.O.B. (voice)
  • Hugh Laurie - Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (voice)
  • Will Arnett - The Missing Link (voice)
  • Kiefer Sutherland - General W.R. Monger (voice)
  • Rainn Wilson - Gallaxhar (voice)
  • Stephen Colbert - President Hathaway (voice)
  • Paul Rudd - Derek Dietl (voice)
  • Julie White - Wendy Murphy (voice)
  • Jeffrey Tambor - Carl Murphy (voice)
  • Amy Poehler - Computer (voice)
  • Ed Helms - News Reporter (voice)
  • Renée Zellweger - Katie (voice)
  • John Krasinski - Cuthbert (voice)
  • Sean Bishop - Private Bullhorn / Helicopter Pilot / Advisor Ortega (voice)
  • Rich Dietl - Commander / Advisor Smith (voice) (as Rich B. Dietl)
  • Stephen Kearin - Technician Ben (voice)
  • Rob Letterman - Secret Service Man #1 / Lieutenant (voice)
  • Tom McGrath - Wilson (voice)
  • Chris Miller - Advisor Cole / Army Commander Jones (voice)
  • Mike Mitchell - Advisor Wedgie (voice)
  • Kent Osborne - Technician Jerry (voice)
  • Latifa Ouaou - Advisor Ouaou / Mrs. Ronson / Female Advisor #2 / Panicked Guest (voice)
  • Geoffrey Pomeroy - Soldier #4 / Pilot / Soldier #3 / News Technician (voice)
  • David P. Smith - Soldier #1 / Advisor Jackson (voice)
  • Lisa Stewart - Bridesmaid Candy (voice)
  • Conrad Vernon - Advisor Hawk / Advisor Dither / Minister / Secret Service Man #2 / Mama Dietl (voice)

Producers[]

  • Lisa J. Freberg (marketing media producer)
  • Jill Hopper (co-producer)
  • Latifa Ouaou (co-producer)
  • Susan Slagle Rogers (associate producer)
  • Lisa Stewart

Details[]

Country[]

  • USA

Language[]

  • English

Release Dates[]

  • March 18, 2009 (Albania)
  • March 19, 2009 (Kazakhstan)
  • March 19, 2009 (Russia)
  • March 19, 2009 (Ukraine)
  • March 25, 2009 (Philippines)
  • March 26, 2009 (Czechia)
  • March 26, 2009 (Israel)
  • March 26, 2009 (Slovakia)
  • March 27, 2009 (Bulgaria)
  • March 27, 2009 (Canada)
  • March 27, 2009 (Serbia and Montenegro)
  • March 27, 2009 (Mexico)
  • March 27, 2009 (Philippines) (IMAX version)
  • March 27, 2009 (USA)
  • March 28, 2009 (Brazil) (limited)
  • March 31, 2009 (China)
  • April 1, 2009 (Belgium)
  • April 1, 2009 (Switzerland) (French speaking region)
  • April 1, 2009 (Egypt)
  • April 1, 2009 (France)
  • April 1, 2009 (Netherlands)
  • April 1, 2009 (Trinidad & Tobago)
  • April 2, 2009 (United Arab Emirates)
  • April 2, 2009 (Argentina)
  • April 2, 2009 (Austria)
  • April 2, 2009 (Australia)
  • April 2, 2009 (Bolivia)
  • April 2, 2009 (Switzerland) (German speaking region)
  • April 2, 2009 (Chile)
  • April 2, 2009 (Germany)
  • April 2, 2009 (Dominican Republic)
  • April 2, 2009 (Greece)
  • April 2, 2009 (Croatia)
  • April 2, 2009 (Hungary)
  • April 2, 2009 (Kuwait)
  • April 2, 2009 (New Zealand)
  • April 2, 2009 (Peru)
  • April 2, 2009 (Puerto Rico)
  • April 2, 2009 (Portugal)
  • April 3, 2009 (Brazil)
  • April 3, 2009 (Colombia)
  • April 3, 2009 (Denmark)
  • April 3, 2009 (Ecuador)
  • April 3, 2009 (Estonia)
  • April 3, 2009 (Spain)
  • April 3, 2009 (Finland)
  • April 3, 2009 (UK)
  • April 3, 2009 (Ireland)
  • April 3, 2009 (Iceland)
  • April 3, 2009 (Italy)
  • April 3, 2009 (Lithuania)
  • April 3, 2009 (Latvia)
  • April 3, 2009 (Mexico)
  • April 3, 2009 (Norway)
  • April 3, 2009 (Panama)
  • April 3, 2009 (Sweden)
  • April 3, 2009 (Taiwan)
  • April 3, 2009 (Uruguay)
  • April 3, 2009 (Venezuela) (3-D version)
  • April 3, 2009 (Vietnam)
  • April 3, 2009 (South Africa)
  • April 4, 2009 (Slovenia)
  • April 8, 2009 (Indonesia)
  • April 9, 2009 (Hong Kong)
  • April 9, 2009 (Thailand)
  • April 10, 2009 (Romania)
  • April 10, 2009 (Turkey)
  • April 14, 2009 (Angola)
  • April 23, 2009 (South Korea)
  • May 1, 2009 (Pakistan)
  • May 27, 2009 (Malaysia)
  • May 28, 2009 (Singapore)
  • May 29, 2009 (Poland)
  • July 11, 2009 (Japan)
  • July 31, 2009 (Madagascar)
  • October 23, 2009 (Germany) (DVD premiere)
  • November 20, 2009 (Togo)

Production[]

The film started as an adaptation of a horror comic book, Rex Havoc, in which a monster hunter Rex and his team of experts called "Ass-Kickers of the Fantastic" fight against ghouls, ghosts and other creatures. The earliest development goes back to 2002, when DreamWorks first filed for a Rex Havoc trademark. In a plot synopsis revealed in 2005, Rex was to assemble a team of monsters, including Ick!, Dr. Cockroach, the 50,000 Pound Woman and Insectosaurus, to fight aliens for disrupting cable TV service. In the following years, the film's story diverged away from the original Rex Havoc, with directors Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman finally creating the storyline from scratch.

Production designer David James stated that the film is "a return to what made us nerds in the first place," getting classic movie monsters and relaunching them in a contemporary setting. Director Conrad Vernon added that he found it would be a great idea to take hideous monsters and giving them personalities and satirizing the archetypes. Each of the five monsters has traits traceable to sci-fi/horror B movies from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, although none is a mere copy of an older character. Susan, who grows to be 49 feet 11 inches tall into Ginormica, was inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Dr. Cockroach represents The Fly and The Curse of Frankenstein, while B.O.B. is an amalgam of slithering and slimy characters that were featured in the films, including The Blob and The Crawling Eye. Insectosaurus, a 350-foot-tall monster, is a nod to the 1961 Kaiju film Mothra. According to Vernon, the Missing Link has no direct inspiration. He "just represents anything prehistoric that comes back to life and terrorizes people." For the San Francisco sequence, the producers researched many films and photographs for an accurate depiction of the city, and filmed animator Line Andersen, who had a similar body type to Ginormica—tall, thin, and athletic-looking—walking alongside a scale model of San Francisco, to capture better how a person not comfortable with being too big with an environment would walk around it.

Ed Leonard, CTO of DreamWorks Animation, says it took approximately 45.6 million computing hours to make Monsters vs. Aliens, more than eight times as many as the original Shrek. Several hundred Hewlett-Packard xw8600 workstations were used, along with a 'render farm' of HP ProLiant blade servers with over 9,000 server processor cores, to process the animation sequence. Animators used 120 terabytes of data to complete the film. They used 6 TB for an explosion scene.

Starting with Monsters vs. Aliens, all feature films released by DreamWorks Animation were produced in a stereoscopic 3D format, using Intel's InTru3D technology. 2D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D, and 4DX versions were released.

Reception[]

Box office[]

On its opening weekend, the film opened at number 1, grossing $59.3 million in 4,104 theaters. Of that total, the film grossed an estimated $5.2 million in IMAX 3D theatres, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing IMAX 3D debut, behind Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen. The film grossed $198.4 million in the United States and Canada, making it the second-highest-grossing animated movie of the year in these regions behind Up. Worldwide, it is the third highest-grossing animated film of 2009 with a total of $381.5 million behind Up and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It was the highest-grossing film worldwide in Witherspoon's career until Sing overtook it in 2017.

Critical response[]

This film has a 6.4 rating on IMDb and a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 6.5/10.

Company Credits[]

Production Companies[]

Distributors[]

Special Effects[]

  • L.A. Mad Dogs (ADR Voice Casting) (as LA MADDOGS)

Technical Specs[]

Runtime[]

  • 94 mins

Color[]

  • Color

Aspect Ratio[]

  • 2.39:1
  • 1.78:1 (TV version)
  • 1.43:1 (IMAX version: cropped)
  • 1.33:1 (Fullscreen DVD)

Trivia[]

  • The fifth DreamWorks Animation film to have a mid/post credits sequence, after Chicken Run, Shrek 2, Over the Hedge and Kung Fu Panda.
  • The second DreamWorks Animation film to be released in March, after The Road to El Dorado.
  • The last DreamWorks Animation film to have the "DreamWorks Animation Presents" credit, until Kung Fu Panda 3 was released.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens is the first DreamWorks Animation franchise to become a tetralogy.
  • The second DreamWorks Animation film to having a female protagonist, after Chicken Run.
    • It is also the first original DreamWorks Animation film to have a female protagonist.
  • This is the first DreamWorks Animation film to be produced and released in 3-D, followed by How to Train Your Dragon.
  • The third DreamWorks Animation film to be produced in a 2:35:1 aspect ratio, after Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Kung Fu Panda.
  • This is the last DreamWorks film to have a full screen format for its US home release. All DreamWorks films starting with How to Train Your Dragon to have a full screen format for its 4:3 prints.
  • This is the 5th computer-animated film by DreamWorks Animation to be produced at their Glendale studio, along with Shark Tale, Over the Hedge, Bee Movie and Kung Fu Panda.
  • This was the final and last film to use the 2004 DreamWorks Animation logo since Shrek 2.
  • The Gallaxhar's Robot Probe was a cameo in temporarily cancelled film Me & My Shadow, in the scene.
  • Amy Poehler, Seth Rogen and Will Arnett appeared in Horton Hears a Who!
  • Seth Rogen's third DreamWorks Animation movie, after Shrek the Third (2007) and Kung Fu Panda (2008).
  • The fourth computer-animated film to be rated PG by the MPAA after Antz (1998), Dinosaur (2000), Shrek (2001) and Ice Age (2002).
  • This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to be released in the 2000s.

Connections[]

Followed by[]

Spin-off[]

  • Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) (Video Game) - Video game based on the animated film.
  • B.O.B.'s Big Break (2009) (Video)
  • Night of the Living Carrots (2011) (Video) - short featuring characters from the movie
  • Monsters vs. Aliens (2013) (TV Series)

References[]

  • The Godfather (1972) - Gallaxhar taking over Earth is just business, not personal
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - The famous five-notes are played. The President plays the 5-note "alien communication" theme on a keyboard for the alien robot.
  • Apocalypse Now (1979) - "Terminate with extreme prejudice."
  • Alien (1979) - Closing of doors during chase in space
  • Clash of the Titans (1981) - Theme music is heard when Susan Murphy (Ginormica) pulls the cables of the golden gate bridge
  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - A missile is labeled "E.T. Go Home" and a burst of John Williams' E.T. theme is heard when the missile is on screen.
  • Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) - Susan Murphy (Ginormica) asks General W.R. Monger if he is one of those half human/half machine/half Darth Vader things.
  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - "Hang onto your shorts, we're going for a ride!"
  • The Terminator (1984) - Susan Murphy (Ginormica) asks General W.R. Monger if he is one of those half human/half machine things.
  • Beverly Hills Cop (1984) - the main title theme song, "Axel F", is played.
  • Shrek (2001) - General W.R. Monger has a Shrek Badge on his uniform.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -
  • The Matrix Reloaded (2003) -
  • Madagascar (2005) - In the scene where Gallxhar in Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) is spreading his message around the world, a clip from Madagascar (2005) can be seen playing in the background on a screen in Times Square.
  • The Colbert Report (2005) (TV Series) - As the president is walking up the platform to communicate with the robot probe, one of the secret service guards references him as the code name: "Papa Bear". Stephen Colbert calls his 'idol' Bill O'Reilly "Papa Bear" on The Colbert Report
  • An Inconvenient Truth (2006) - Link refers to the warm weather as a "convenient truth"
  • Transformers (2007) - Skating on the road - golden gate bridge scene

Features[]

  • Madagascar (2005) - In the scene where Gallaxhar is spreading his message around the world, a clip from Madagascar can be seen playing in the background on a screen in Times Square.

Spoofs[]

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