Monsters vs. Aliens

Okay, I know this isn't a horror film. It's an animated comedy for kids...but it has monsters and aliens and the monsters are based on actual horror movie monsters, so.... 

Written at the time of the film's release...

 

"The Ginormica Monologues" 

It's the perfect wedding day for Susan Murphy (voice of Reese Witherspoon, cracked on the boil): she has the perfect dress, the perfect church, and the perfect groom in fat-headed weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd). But it's all in the timing.  

Just after a little pre-nuptial spat about honeymooning in Paris or Fresno, the bride-to-be gets squashed by a meteorite. At the altar, everyone comments that she's positively glowing...but...glowing green! Then, she goes from meteoric to all metaphoric, by growing enormously, dwarfing her puny groom and scientifically smashing the church to splinters. I kept waiting for the parents to say "our little girl's grown up!" but no such luck.*

Pretty soon, the Army led by General W.R. Monger (a gruff Kiefer Sutherland, having fun) fires hypodermics in her butt and Gulliver her to the ground, where she awakens in one of those cavernous U.S. installations we only wish we had, with a bunch of other monsters Monger's captured since the atomic testing days of the 50's. There's the Missing Link (Will Arnett), a Blob named B.O.B. (Seth Rogen in a bit of typecasting), and the insane Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), as well as a giant Japanese moth creature called Insectizoid. Kept prisoners by the government, they are finally called out as a last resort when Aliens, led by the evil Galaxhar (Rainn Wilson, like you've never heard him) attack the U.S. ("...they only seem to ever attack here,"** intones a Brokawed-paletted news anchor) after humiliating the President (Stephen Colbert...typecasting again).

Dreamworks and the directors (Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman of Shrek 2 and Shark Tale, respectively) do a nice job of plumbing the envelope of the monster-crowd giving us versions of Mothra, the Fly, the Blob, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and the 50 ft. Woman, and instilling the politically correct message that these aren't monsters but "special" people...er, things...entities (whatever). Indeed, the entire movie plays like a therapy session for Susan to embrace her empowerment and not to see her change as an accident of Nature, so much as...a happy accident of Nature. Hey, empowerment is empowerment even if you do go up 30 dress-sizes. 

The animation? Extraordinarily simplistic in a weird way. Susan looks like one of those big-eyed Keane children, and most of the men seem to be variations of Nixon (except for Derek, who looks uncannily like Conan O'Brien). The monsters are varying body-types and primary colors, so you can tell who's who when they're flitting across the screen (which they do a lot). 

Still, there is good planning going on, so one is never at a loss for where one is, and where the danger lies. In a totally made-up universe that can be a problem. And the 3-D effects are impressive, starting with a Dreamworks logo gag (heh), and a gratuitous paddle-ball sequence, although the 3-D-ness, sometimes comes off as having the dimensions of a pop-up book. But, the process has come a long way, and is frequently, deliberately eye-popping. It's not enough to recommend seeing it in theaters, though, so hopefully when it comes to DVD, they'll include the 3-D version, with glasses.

* ...and I'll bet the attendess threw puffed rice, (badum-bump!)

** Personally, I think it has to do with our Immigration Policy. "Okay, you can destroy the Golden Gate Bridge...once, but promise you'll never do it again and we'll consider granting you amnesty."\

Bewitched

It's still Hallowe'en Season, but things got so dark this week, I felt the need to lighten up with this one.

But, be warned: Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day (a spot easy to fill with sub-par Horror movies), so one should take caution. I can watch an old early episode of "Bewitched" and be amazed at how solid it is as entertainment. Nicely written, too. But, the movie version...makes me want to twitch my nose if only to make it go away in a puff. So much potential with a good cast. Better to watch I Married a Witch, I think. Or the old television series. 

This was written at the time of the film's conjuring.

Bewitched (Nora Ephron, 2005) The all-star movie version of the TV classic "Bewitched" left me bothered and bewildered.

Yeah, yeah. Cute line and all that, but essentially true; How on God's green Earth could Ephron and her sister-conspirator in this crime have screwed up a sure thing like "Bewitched?"
The show, which debuted on ABC in the early 60's was fairly inspired for the first four years, then ran on auto-broom for the rest of its run, largely on the spell of star Elizabeth Montgomery's spunkiness, and an ever-decreasing number (due to age and death) of eccentric co-stars. It may seem like stretching the social point a bit, but "Bewitched" was a flighty, goofy examination of the trials of a "mixed" marriage (she's a witch from a long lineage of witches and he's just a normal guy)...without risking the wrath of any of the Southern States!*

And on top of that, despite piggish (more like ape-ish) husband Darrin's constant attempts to repress her heritage, house-witch Samantha Stevens always managed to display female empowerment, while being blithely supportive of her wage-slave husband. Like she couldn't "twitch" herself a mink coat whenever she wanted. I know an awful lot of women, who, as little girls, looked up to Samantha as a symbol of power under wise restraint, superior in all things man-world, and only able to be "super-mom" because she had what all mom's have...a touch of magic. These girls wanted to be Samantha: charming, but flinty, capable of holding all the power in the world, but only when necessary—holding the Power, but dispensing it with Wisdom.

So, with all that going for it, why did the Ephron sisters have the effrontery to completely ignore what worked about "Bewitched," and toss it in favor of a complicated scenario in which a real-live witch (Nicole Kidman, playing her second witch after Practical Magic) wants to live in the "muggle" world, free of witchcraft (rebelling, in other words), and, despite this, manages to get herself cast in a real-life return to television of a "Bewitched" TV show (live action, with an audience? With all those effects?!!), which stars two perfectly awful co-stars (Will Farrell and Shirley MacLaine, playing, respectively, "the guy who plays Darrin" and "the old bat who plays Endora"), with conjured-up egos who are stark contrasts to Kidman's magical neophyte actress. Of course, the lead actors are fire and brimstone, but somehow manage to "fall in deep" with each other, simultaneously scraping the edge off Ferrell's blow-hard egocentric actor, and completely nullifying any respect the audience might have been feeling for Kidman's good little witch. The scenario, frankly, makes her look like an emotional moron, nose-twitch or no.**

The movie is off-balanced anyway, with more attention payed to Ferrell's narcissistic actor than to Kidman's character.*** And the revelations about certain characters are too easy and too pat. Some hipster-cred is afforded by the casting of "The Daily Show's" two Steve's: Stephen Colbert as a too-full-of-himself tv scripter, and Steve Carell as a hyper-intense Uncle Arthur (played on the series by Paul Lynde)—a part that feels like a desperation-move.

It is only at the end, when art-imitating-life-imitating art comes full-circle and begins chomping on it's own lizard-tail, and witch and human settle in for wedded bliss in the backlot-house from the series, that the potential nears the target, aided immeasurably by the casting of Richard Kind and Amy Sedaris as the prying neighbors, the Kravitz's. Then, the movie seems comfortably familiar...and funny.  You know, like, if you're going to remake a TV show, why not actually re-make the TV show—only better? This movie is such a mis-fire one wonders if the series' bumbling Aunt Clara (played by the perpetually befuddled Marion Lorne) had a hand in its conjuring.

Rather than being released, this one should have been torched in the village square.

"Sam, is there some sorta hex you can put on that movie?"
"We-ell..."

*Actually, it did.  ABC was wary of how elements of the "occult" would go down in the Bible Belt.  Fortunately, they had on their side the very religiously conservative Agnes Moorehead, who had no problems playing a satanic mother-in-law of a witch...to the hilt of her broom-handle.

** Kidman practiced the Samantha nose-twitch until she was expert at it.  The secret?  Montgomery never twitched her nose—she twitched her upper lip. 

*** Why?  The script was extensively re-written to court the actor considered to be a natural Darrin, Jim Carrey. But despite beefing up the character's worth, and providing a transformative character arc from man-child to human adult—the only substantial character arc in the movie—Carrey passed. Smart move on his part.  Bad move on the producer's part, then, to keep the Carrey part as written and shoe-horn Farrell into it. They should have just rewritten the script and returned the focus to witchcraft rather than the making of a television show. Total mis-calculation. And, while we're at it, they could have made a bold move and cast a couple of their already-appearing lesser-known actors (who had yet to break out of their "Daily Show" stints) in the "Darren" part even though they didn't have any box-office cache...yet...that being Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell (Colbert was cast as a "Bewitched" crew-member and Carell played the "Paul Lynde" role of Uncle Arthur).