Three by Three

Three things I liked about Monsters v. Aliens.

• The action sequences, which were clear and easily followable while at the same time taking full advantage of the advantages of animation. Animation can show comic book action better than any other medium, but only if time and money is spent. I really hope one day we get Pixar-type renditions of classic superheroes, if only so that this advantage can be fully realized.
• The human characters, who were funnier than expected and mainly managed to avoid one-note cliches.
• The story - the clear arc of a woman becoming a monster and learning to embrace it was nice in the way it gave a big boys movie like this a female protagonist.

Three things I did not like about Monsters v. Aliens

• The execution of that story. While it worked as a whole, and certainly had some clever bits (the President-attempting-communication-by-music), the beat-by-beat story was not as consistently delightful as Pixar has led us to believe is possible.
• The glossing over of the whole "monsters have been prisoners for 50 years thing." That got forgiven/forgot by the characters real quick.
• Reese Witherspoon, who didn't really give Susan enough character through her voice work.

Until Whenever