Review of Monsters vs Aliens (2009) by Chads. — 28 Mar 2009

"So how's the weather up there?" Thanks to a little divine intervention, Susan(Reese Witherspoon) knows. There's no need for the exponentially growing bride to ask her weatherman fiance anymore.

"Girl power" takes the form of extreme gigantism in "Monsters vs. Aliens", an animated sci-fi actioneer that seems largely unaware about the fundamental problem of its basic premise.

While the unwieldy spurt in growth at the outset helps Susan redefine herself as an independent-minded woman, who is too big for Derek(Paul Rudd), and too big for Fresno(as the film states, only the fifty-fith largest news market in America), the accidental superhero's colossalism will ultimately handicap the jilted bride in the long run.

After losing her quantonium during the alien invasion, fighting on the monsters' side, she declares, "I don't want my old life back," and recovers her quantonium, and most likely, her self-esteem.

The film's message of female empowerment gets lost in semantics since Susan battles Gallaxhar(Rainn Wilson) as a monster, as Ginormica, instead of as a mere woman. Susan's mutant friends, previously scorned by the human sector for their otherness, enact a change in the connotation behind the term "monster", when they're hailed as conquering heroes for turning back the plot against earth.

But at the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, Susan is still the "other", not a woman, an evolved woman, a monster. She's something that men fear, not respect. Derek should respect Susan.