Animated films have fallen short recently. Way short. Dreamworks has tried to keep pace by releasing sequel after sequel of the try-try again franchise Shrek, along with a bevy of sloppy underachievers such as Shark Tale, Madagascar and Over the Hedge, along with the voice-talent-heavy, uninspired Kung-Fu Panda (Hey, did you think it was funny when we made Jack Black a shark? Now he’s a panda! It sounds like an episode of South Park involving one Mr. Rob Schneider…) Pixar has gone from making charming, inspired features such as The Incredibles and Toy Story to abandoning storytelling and instead shoving dazzling computer-generated effects in our faces, like the lackluster Ratatouille and the grossly-overrated Wall-E. I won’t even attempt to explain my confusion over how films like Flushed Away, Surf’s Up and Happy Feet get made – the latter two replacing substance with star turns for penguins, Hollywood’s newest incumbent novelty animal (move over, monkeys!). So you’ll understand my reluctance to get psyched walking into a screening of three sequences from Dreamworks Animation’s latest flick, Monsters vs. Aliens. Well, monster and alien lovers alike can take a sigh of relief when I say THIS MOVIE LOOKS FREAKIN’ AWESOME!
The film starts out on the right foot by borrowing its story and even its design of the titular monsters and aliens from old-school exploitation flicks and studio horror. Ginormica, a.k.a. Susan Murphy, the film’s lead character (voiced by none other than All-American Girl Reese Witherspoon) is clearly a nod to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, while Seth Rogen’s BOB and Will Arnett’s The Missing Link point to The Blob and classic Universal Monster Movies, respectively, for inspiration. Even J-horror/sci-fi finds its place in the well-purposed cast of monsters, with Insectasaurus, who, aside from being the best-equipped to throw down with Godzilla, is also quite adorable. I know, I know monsters aren’t supposed to be adorable. Well then I’m gonna have to ask all of you to create a large bonfire with your Gremlins and Never-Ending Story DVDs… Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The coolest thing about the screening was that the sequences were presented in 3D. If you have the chance to see this movie in 3D when it releases in March, I highly recommend doing so. The 3D is done to perfection with the help of state-of-the-art, never-before-used Tru 3D. The reason the third-dimension holds up so well in this film is because it’s not the star of the film, merely an aid to help immerse its viewers in the story. During scenes that don’t involve Monster/Alien cage matches (complete with fireballs erupting in the audience, and military aircraft shooting missiles up your nose), the third dimension is used to adjust the viewer’s depth perception rather than to protrude the action off the screen – something I’ve never really seen done with a 3D film. This could be because most 3D films are transferred over in post-production, but Monsters vs. Aliens was shot in 3D. Just as The Dark Knight shot four of their action sequences on IMAX film to give the viewer the full IMAX experience rather than blowing it up to fit the screen and in turn creating a water-downed image, on March 27th you can see your first truly 3D animated feature.
So what did Dreamworks reveal from the film? Below are descriptions of the three sequences screened:
Sequence #1
In the first scene we’re introduced to the alien invasion taking place on Earth, something which will incite the events that are to take place over the next eighty to ninety minutes. The scene opens by introducing the character of the President (voiced by Steven Colbert). While a bumbling, clueless, unintentionally comical president is not exactly a stamp of originality in films (nor in real life either, sadly enough), you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who pulls this off better than Mr. Colbert.
The President upon his arrival climbs a large set of makeshift stairs which leads right up to the alien spacecraft – a cycloptic, egg-shaped iron structure. Here the President attempts to make “peace” with the UFO by playing an ‘80s song, the name of which escapes me, on a keyboard atop a wooden staircase. As you can imagine, this doesn’t go well with the antagonistic extra-terrestrials and the giant spacecraft begins its attack, the President narrowly escaping death.
An incredibly and beautifully animated fight ensues between the giant spacecraft and the U.S. military, the scope and magnificence of which is only amplified out of the universe by the vast detail of the Tru 3D experience. Helicopters and jets fly in and launch missiles as the military extracts the President from the battle, which is awarded in favor of the alien spacecraft, leading us to…
Sequence #2
This sequence focuses on introducing the monsters and developing the characters. MvA goes in the right direction in two ways with this sequence… 1) It develops the characters within the story, so you’re not wondering why the hell you’ve followed them on this adventure (which I cannot say is done in any of the other animated films I’ve seen recently) and 2) It showcases the importance of the three-dimensional aspect outside of action sequences.
It begins by traveling down into the secret, underground bunker of the United States government – a scene, again, enriched by the multi-layered nature of the 3D print. Some knuckle-headed, buffoonery involving the President ensues, making for a few nice comedic moments, before we’re introduced to General W.R. Monger (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland – doing his best R. Lee Ermey impression) – the man charged with capturing and wrangling the monsters. Monger, the kind of four-star general you might expect, suggests that the President solve his alien invasion problem with the use of Monger’s team of captive monsters, which leads us to precisely that.
The monsters are held in a maximum security prison, and to illustrate such we open up in one of the cells therein. Witherspoon’s Susan wakes up in the metallic chamber thinking that her transformation into a 50-foot tall woman the day before was just a dream – boy, is she wrong. As a light goes off in her cell, the room suddenly begins to shoot down some kind of elevator shaft, bringing her into a large dome-like room. Here we’ll meet the rest of the monsters: Arnett’s Link, Rogen’s BOB, Hugh Laurie’s (i.e. House M.D.) Dr. Cockroach, and that big furball Insectasaurus (who only speaks through a series of inaudible roars).
Many comedic and decidedly quirky moments later, the rest of the monsters are shepherded back into their respective cells and W.R. Monger floats in on some jet pack-like device to debrief Susan and give her a tour of her new home – which is assumedly the same military facility where were first introduced to Monger just a scene before. This leads us onto our final adventure…
Sequence #3
I’m not gonna say much about this because this sequence just about blew the theater doors off their hinges, and I want this to be as special for you as it was for me upon first sight. All I’m gonna say is this: battle on the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s right… Susan, Link, Insectasaurus, Dr. Cockroach, and BOB all team up to fight (in what figures as Susan’s first battle with the team) the gigantic, egg-shaped spacecraft from the first sequence. This scene was incredible. Inventive in its way to put the characters into danger and think of a smarter, more organic way to get them out as well as brilliant in its use of the 3D technology (and even graced with what, out of what I saw today, turned out to be some of the film’s greatest comedic moments). Really cool. You’re in for a treat.
After all the footage was screened, Dreamworks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg (who also introduced all of the footage) took the stage for a short round of Q&A. Katzenberg spoke of the newly implemented Tru 3D (a never-before-seen technology designed by a partnership between Dreamworks and Intel), the evolution of 3D film, and the challenges presented by this filmmaking process. It’s hard to explain most of this without shoving a bunch of industry jargon in your faces but here are a few of the key points Mr. Katzenberg touched upon:
Monsters vs. Aliens will be released in standard and 3D. 3D will cost you five extra dollars a ticket – but you do get to keep the 3D glasses, which are actually really cool looking and surprisingly comfortable to wear if you’re a weirdo like me and want to cherish the memory. You will also only be able to see the film in 3D during its theatrical run, as 3D home video has not yet been perfected.
It costs 15 million dollars more than a normal movie to produce a 3D Dreamworks animation. Apparently rendering all that animation is a real pain in the arse – and judging by the 16 hours it takes my Mac to turn a Final Cut Pro file into a Quicktime file, I can only imagine the woes of Dreamworks animators.
There are 10,000 theaters in the U.S. equipped to project 3D films, Dreamworks estimates that about half of these will play Monsters vs. Aliens upon its March release. Katzenberg says that by the time Shrek 4 is released in 2010, it will play in about 7,500 of those.
Upon wrapping up the Q&A, an audience member asked Katzenberg what kind of creative marketing possibilities the 3D aspect of the film held for the Monsters vs. Aliens campaign. “Ohhh… just you wait and see,” quipped Katzenberg. So watch out, looks like the three-dimensional glory of Monsters vs. Aliens could be spilling out onto the street come the New Year.
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