MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Down 31 this week

Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

6.6
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.6/10 from 69,388 users   Metascore: 56/100
Reviews: 177 user | 214 critic | 35 from Metacritic.com

A woman transformed into a giant after she is struck by a meteorite on her wedding day becomes part of a team of monsters sent in by the U.S. government to defeat an alien mastermind trying to take over Earth.

Writers:

(screenplay), (screenplay), 5 more credits »
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 300 titles created 11 months ago
 
a list of 156 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 2654 titles created 11 months ago
 
a list of 347 titles created 13 Mar 2012
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Monsters vs Aliens (2009) on IMDb 6.6/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Monsters vs Aliens.
3 wins & 7 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Megamind (2010)
Animation | Action | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

The supervillain Megamind finally defeats his nemesis, the superhero Metro Man. But without a hero, he loses all purpose and must find new meaning to his life.

Director: Tom McGrath
Stars: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey
Animation | Action | Adventure
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

The animals try to fly back to New York City, but crash-land on an African wildlife refuge, where Alex is reunited with his parents.

Directors: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
Stars: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

Lewis is a brilliant inventor who meets mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson, whisking Lewis away in a time machine and together they team up to track down Bowler Hat Guy in a showdown that ends with an unexpected twist of fate.

Director: Stephen J. Anderson
Stars: Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry
Planet 51 (2009)
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.1/10 X  

American astronaut Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker lands on Planet 51 thinking he's the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders...like Chuck!

Directors: Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad, and 1 more credit »
Stars: Jessica Biel, John Cleese, Dwayne Johnson
Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

After visiting 2015, Marty McFly must repeat his visit to 1955 to prevent disastrous changes to 1985... without interfering with his first trip.

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson
Action | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6/10 X  

When missile technology is used to enhance toy action figures, the toys soon begin to take their battle programming too seriously.

Director: Joe Dante
Stars: David Cross, Jay Mohr, Gregory Smith
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.8/10 X  

After ruining his reputation with the town, a courageous chicken must come to the rescue of his fellow citizens when aliens start an invasion.

Director: Mark Dindal
Stars: Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Don Knotts
Animation | Action | Adventure
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.9/10 X  

Aliens abduct all adults; genius Jimmy and his friends build an interstellar spacefleet and rescue them.

Director: John A. Davis
Stars: Megan Cavanagh, Mark DeCarlo, Debi Derryberry
Animation | Action | Adventure
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

When Sid's attempt to adopt three dinosaur eggs gets him abducted by their real mother to an underground lost world, his friends attempt to rescue him.

Directors: Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier
Stars: Eunice Cho, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo
Spy Kids (2001)
Action | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.5/10 X  

The children of secret-agent parents must save them from danger.

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega
Robots (2005)
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.3/10 X  

In a robot world, a young idealistic inventor travels to the big city to join his inspiration's company, only to find himself opposing its sinister new management.

Directors: Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha
Stars: Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Ewan McGregor
Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

Enjoying a peaceable existence in 1885, Doctor Emmet Brown is about to be killed by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. Marty McFly travels back in time to save his friend.

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
B.O.B. (voice)
...
...
...
...
Gallaxhar (voice)
...
...
Derek Dietl (voice)
...
Wendy Murphy (voice)
...
Carl Murphy (voice)
...
Computer (voice)
...
News Reporter (voice)
...
Katie (voice)
...
Cuthbert (voice)
Sean Bishop ...
Edit

Storyline

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 the years. As a last resort, under the guidance of General 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 destruction! Written by Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

Oooze gonna save us? See more »


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for sci-fi action, some crude humor and mild language | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

27 March 2009 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Monsters vs Aliens: A Monstrous IMAX 3D Experience  »

Box Office

Budget:

$175,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£4,345,711 (UK) (3 April 2009)

Gross:

$198,332,128 (USA) (21 August 2009)
 »

Company Credits

Production Co:

 »
Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

| |

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Gallaxhar says "UUUH! Fire phasoid cannon!" you can see the contrail left behind by the flying tennis rackets going past his eyes. The filmmakers also confirmed that. See more »

Goofs

When Ginormica goes to the TV station to see Derek the call letters on the building begin with a W. All broadcast stations east of the MS river start with a W. West of the MS river they all begin with K. See more »

Quotes

[Opening lines]
Technician Ben: Hey, Jerry, you might wanna check this one out. Palomar just picked it up. It looks like some form of UFO, and it's headed this way.
Technician Jerry: How many times do I have to tell you this? UFOs don't exist. It's probably just...
[Sees computer, heads to monitors]
Technician Ben: Wow, it's energy reading is massive.
Technician Jerry: Holy Cheez-its! What do we do? No one ever told us what to do! The only reason I took the job was because we weren't supposed to do anything!
Technician Ben: Jerry, calm down. I'm calculating the impact point. It ...
[...]
See more »

Crazy Credits

During the closing credits, there is an additional scene in the War Room where the President prepares a latte for General Monger and pushes the wrong big red button. After hastily saying something about a contingency plan, he sticks his head seemingly out of the screen to address the audience: "Who wants to freeze my head?" See more »

Connections

References To Be or Not to Be (1942) See more »

Soundtracks

"Let's Get It Started"
Written by Will i Am (as Will Adams), Mike Fratantuno (as Michael Fratantuno), Taboo (as Jaime Gomez), Terence Graves, George Pajon Jr. and Apl.de.Ap (as Allan Pineda)
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Å Nutshell Review: Monsters vs Aliens
17 May 2009 | by (Singapore) – See all my reviews

I'm beginning to wonder whether the 3D novelty is wearing out already, especially if slapped on films that think the beauty of visual effects and animation take precedence over a solid story. Everything here worked to a perfect T, from the very key component of animation, to voice casting, and sound, but what the film ultimately lacked, was a compelling narrative, and soul.

The premise for success is all there, and as seen in the trailer, there's a pretty good balance of comedy, action, and homage to the 50s and 60s horror and sci-fi genres. But as the adage goes, too many cooks, in this case, screenplay writers (5 of them no less) will spoil the broth, and as a result, the trailer contains the best bits from within the movie, and everything else just plain boring, which to me too is a surprise.

Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon who brought us Shark Tale and Shrek 2 respectively, you would have thought that the combination of their strengths would result in one heck of an entertaining ride, not. It's about time animated films pull a stop to lampooning all that's pop culture. Sure it's funny for a while, but it gets on your nerves pretty much faster than you can roll your eyes at the next joke from the same joke book.

While the film has plenty of monsters and well, just one alien and a giant robot which form the adversarial core, it's not about teamwork but the celebration of the strength of individuality. It's the story of a wistful bride Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) whose only goal in life is to go to Paris with her husband-to-be Derek (Paul Rudd), a news weatherman whom you know is actually the jerk that he is. Cue huge falling debris onto Susan on her wedding day, and she becomes Ginormica, captured by General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) who puts her in a top-secret pet "zoo" of sorts with his other trophies Insectosaurous, Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), a merman creature known as The Missing Link (Will Arnet) and the crowd favourite, the nonsensical B.O.B (Seth Rogen), a blob of jello goo with no brain who serves as the punching bag and the source of all things funny here.

Speaking of funny, the laughs unfortunately don't come hard and fast. Attempts are made to be funny from the get go, but more often than not the effort fell flat on its face. It tried to emulate the Zucker brothers style of slapstick wit, and to a certain degree, when it worked it worked wonders, but you can sense an audience disconnect here when everyone fell silent most of the time. Even kids aren't tickled by the usual juvenile antics of the characters anymore, which now calls for a shift in sophistication.

A whole host of stars join the lineup, such as Rainn Wilson as the villainous alien Gallaxhar, Stephen Colbert as the dim-witted President Hathaway, Amy Poehler as a computer voice and even Renee Zellweger, but despite the star power going all round in flesh out the carefully designed and crafted animated characters, ultimately everyone was one-dimensional and playing to their stereotypical tendencies. 3D-wise, there are only a handful (pardon the pun) of scenes that are specifically designed with that kind of interaction in mind, otherwise the visuals only provide that depth of view, and nothing much that will make you reach out or duck.

Technically, you cannot fault Monsters vs Aliens. But essentially there's no heart in this film at all, and that proved to be its ultimate downfall that no novelty factor can redeem on its behalf.


29 of 54 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
References to other movies edvin-6
Seth Rogen justin-995
Was it stated Susan was an expert skater anywhere? jsl151
Celebrity Voices in Cartoons? Do you choose cartoons based on actors? slipslider
Was I supposed to feel sorry for Insectosaurus? WilliamABW
Saddest part of the movie: PopcornWithMovies
Discuss Monsters vs Aliens (2009) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page