“Alien problem? Monster solution.”—Film tagline
Monsters vs. Aliens (also known as MVA by acronym) is a 2009 animated science fiction comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation. Directed by Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman, the film centers around a group of misfit monsters hired by the United States Armed Forces to save the world from the invasion of an extraterrestrial villain in exchange for their freedom. Featured voices include Reese Witherspoon, Set Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd, and Stephen Colbert.
Although not successful enough to be followed by a sequel, the film started a franchise consisting of two television specials (Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space in October of that same year and its 2012 sequel Night of the Living Carrots) and Nickelodeon television series in 2013, all of which take place after the events of the film.
Plot[]
In Modesto, California, a young woman named Susan Murphy is hours away from her wedding to weatherman Derek Dietl, who cancels their honeymoon in Paris for a career opportunity in Fresno. Just before the ceremony, a meteorite from a destroyed planet comes hurtling out of the sky and lands directly on top of Susan. Although she appears to be unharmed initially, during the ceremony, she appears to have absorbed a strange energy contained within the meteorite, as evidenced by her glowing a mysterious shade of green. As if that wasn’t enough, said energy causes Susan to grow into a 49-foot giant (with her hair turning white as a side effect), accidentally destroying the church in the process. At that moment, a U.S. military detachment that arrived on the scene to investigate the meteorite, sedate Susan and capture her.
Sometime later, Susan awakens to find herself inside Area 5?, a top-secret government compound for monsters run by U.S. Army officer General W. R. Monger. There, she meets her fellow inmates, who consist of Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., a human scientist/cockroach hybrid; B.O.B. (short for Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate), a sentient, brainless and indestructible mass of blue goo; the Missing Link, a prehistoric 20,000-year-old fish/ape hybrid; and Insectosaurus, a 350-foot tall bug mutated by nuclear radiation. Susan is renamed “Ginormica” by the government and, despite Monger sympathizing with her pleas, is forbidden any contact with the outside world, including her friends and family. Susan refuses to capitulate and as such subjects herself to experiments by Dr. Cockroach to shrink her back to normal size.
Meanwhile, faraway on board a mysterious spaceship, a squid-like alien overlord named Gallaxhar is awakened a few days later when he is alerted by his ship’s computer to the presence of “Quantonium,” a powerful intergalactic element, on Earth. Determined to obtain the substance for himself, he sends a 350-foot tall robotic probe to find it and extract it from its source—which in this case is Susan herself. When the probe lands, Hathaway, the President of the United States, attempts first contact by playing “Axel F” on a keyboard. However, the probe does not wish to make peace and proceeds to go on a destructive rampage towards San Francisco, completely unaffected by the military’s attempts to destroy it. When word of the robot probe reaches General Monger, he persuades President Hathaway to send Susan and her fellow monsters to battle the robot and save the planet. In San Francisco, the probe detects the Quantonium within Susan and begins chasing her across the city. The monsters reunite at the Golden Gate Bridge where, working together, they finally destroy the robot. As a result, the government sets them free as a reward for saving the Earth. Gallaxhar, having witnessed the probe’s destruction from his ship, furiously sets a course for Earth to obtain the Quantonium himself.
Meanwhile, Susan, now free, returns home with her new friends and reunites with her parents. While she goes off to find Derek, the monsters interact with Susan’s family. However, due to their lack of social skills with humans, they only embarrass themselves and unintentionally scare off all the humans at the party. At the same time, Susan arrives at the news station Derek works at and pledges to resume their affair as soon as they can find a way to restore her to her normal size. However, instead of offering his unwavering support in curing her so that their romance may flourish, Derek selfishly breaks off their engagement instead, believing she would overshadow his career. Heartbroken, Susan reunites with her equally crestfallen friends at an abandoned gas station. There, she realizes that her life was better after becoming “Ginormica” and decides to fully embrace her new friends and lifestyle. Suddenly, Gallaxhar’s ship arrives and immediately starts to beam Susan onboard. Insectosaurus secures a slik line to Susan in an attempt to save her, but Gallaxhar sees this and fires a beam in retaliation, seemingly killing Insectosaurus.
On Gallaxhar’s ship, Susan, now dressed in a jumpsuit and locked in a cage, breaks loose and chases Gallaxhar through the ship, enraged by Insectosaurus’ supposed death. But the evil alien traps her in a machine that extracts the Quantonium from her body, shrinking her back to her original size. Gallaxhar then proceeds to use the extracted Quantonium to power a machine that creates an army of clones so he can launch a full-scale invasion of Earth. Meanwhile, the monsters, determined to ensure Insectosaurus’ death was not in vain, infiltrate Gallaxhar’s ship with assistance from General Monger to rescue Susan and stop the invasion. After saving her from being disposed of by one of the clones, they fight off the clone army and make their way to the ship’s power core, where Dr. Cockroach activates the self-destruct sequence. As they make their way out, the door leading out closes, trapping all but Susan. Despite the monsters’ plea to save herself, Susan instead hurries bridge, where Gallaxhar is attempting to escape with the Quantonium. She attempts to force him into releasing her friends, but he tells her that he cannot because the self-destruct sequence is irreversible. Susan, using a laser gun, then fires it at the Quantonium orb above, which falls on top of her. As a result, she reabsorbs it, restoring her monstrous size and strength and thus allowing her to save her friends. They all flee the ship, but with no rescue plane in sight and the ship on the verge of exploding, they all fall off the edge, only to be saved at the last second by Monger, at the helm of the revived Insectosaurus, who had sealed his body in a cocoon and transformed into a giant butterfly. The ship then self-destructs, killing Gallaxhar and his army in the process.
Returning to Modesto, the monsters receive a hero’s welcome. Just then, Derek arrives with a cameraman, hoping to give himself a career boost by doing an interview with Susan. Instead, she rejects Derek and humiliates him live on TV by picking him up, throwing him into the air and having B.O.B. catch, swallow and spit him out. At that moment, General Monger receives word of a monstrous snail named “Escargantua,” mutated from falling into a French nuclear reactor, is slowly making its way to Paris, so the monsters head out to confront the new menace.
During a mid-credits scene, President Hathaway, pleased with General Monger’s work, promotes him to his senior security staff. But Hathaway’s attempt to celebrate with coffee ends with him accidentally pushing the wrong button, causing the entire country’s nuclear arsenals to launch. Realizing his error, he then turns to the audience and asks if anyone wants to freeze his head as the film concludes.
Cast[]
- Reese Witherspoon as Susan Murphy/Ginormica, a young woman from Modesto, California who grows into a 49’ 11” giantess after being hit by a radioactive quantonium meteorite on her wedding day.
- Seth Rogen as B.O.B. (Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate), an indestructible, sentient gelatinous mass created when a tomator was injected with a genetically-modified ranch-flavored dessert topping and the film’s comic relief.
- Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., a brilliant scientist who attempted to imbue himself with the resilience and abilities of a cockroach (only to wind up with a side effect that resulted in his head becoming that of a human-sized cockroach).
- Will Arnett as the Missing Link, (or simply “Link” for short), a 20,000-year-old fish-ape humanoid who was found and thawed out by scientists, only to escape and wreak havoc on Cocoa Beach, Florida (his old lagoon habitat).
- Rainn Wilson as Gallaxhar, an evil alien overlord intent on conquering the Earth with an army of clones of himself—but to do so must first retrieve the quantonium from Susan to power his cloning machine.
- Kiefer Sutherland as General W. R. Monger, a military leader who runs a top-secret facility where monsters are kept.
- Stephen Colbert as President Hathaway, the impulsive and rather dimwitted President of the United States who agrees to General Monger’s plan to have the monsters fight the aliens when the U.S. military is unable to defeat Gallaxhar’s robot probe.
- Paul Rudd as Derek Dietl, a megalomaniacal local weatherman and Susan’s supposed fiancé.
Additional voices[]
- Amy Poehler as Gallaxhar’s computer
- Jeffery Tambor as Carl Murphy, Susan’s overemotional father
- Julie White as Wendy Murphy, Susan’s loving mother
- Renée Zellweger as Katie, a young woman whose date with her boyfriend is interrupted by the landing of Gallaxhar’s robot probe.
- John Krasinski as Cuthbert, Katie’s boyfriend
- Ed Helms as the news reporter
External links[]
Monsters vs. Aliens on YouTube