Monsters vs Aliens

Dreamworks’s animated sci-fi offspring centres on the gigantic misfortunes of Susan Murphy, a feisty young thing with a crush on TV weather-dork Derek. When a meteorite strikes their wedding ceremony, Susan is affected by fallout and grows into a 50-foot chick with attitude. She’s taken to a secret underground facility where she meets her freaky co-stars, BOB (a gelatinous blob), Mr Cockroach, Missing Link (half-fish, half-ape) and a hare-brained maggot called Insectosaurus.

Some chucklesome ‘Airplane’-style humour is unleashed during this early stage as Susan (renamed Ginormica) tries to come to terms with her size, her surroundings and her wacky new friends. But as any filmmaker knows, there’s only so much jollity kids will endure before they yearn for some evil influence to stir things up, and here it’s in the unoriginal form of an invasion from space. Will Ginormica and friends defeat the evil aliens and, more to the point, will she ever be able to return to a normal life with Derek?

‘Monsters vs Aliens’ is skilfully animated and spasmodically funny, but you get the impression the film’s seven (!) writers ran out of ideas two-thirds of the way through, opting for a conventional succession of overwrought combat sequences and feverish hyperbole. The film is screened in both 3D and 2D, but aside from a handful of impressive 3D effects, you’d be equally well-served opting for the two-dimensional version.