Pixar this is not, in fact from DreamWorks, the studio that bought us “Shrek”, we expect better.
The animation is excellent, although quite why Susan’ arms are so thin she makes Supermodels look like Sumo wrestlers and why her huge eyes are somewhat disturbing in the early parts of the movie, is perhaps another matter.

The story is a strange choice for a movie that similar to Pixar’s “Cars”, obviously aims for a much younger audience.

Normal human beings and insects being affected by some form of alien cosmic ray/meteor, then becoming ginormous whilst fighting other huge monsters, is a staple plot device from the fifties. It is doubtful that this will resonate with preteen children or in fact, their respective parents in their twenties or thirties.

Whilst there are some lines clearly designed to keep parents interested, they do not work and are just plain unfunny, in fact on occasion, almost stop the movie I want to get off, unfunny.

“I feel like I am having a nervous breakdown in a mental institution”, Linda complains at one point.

Quite how this would have gone down when being dialogue work shopped, is difficult to imagine.

Susan the local ordinary girl (Witherspoon) and her rather drippy but career minded local TV Weatherman fiancée, are due to be married. Cue strange glowing meteorite crash landing and suddenly Susan is looking at dress sizes on the XXXL rack.
Whisked off to be part of a shadowy military force (Kiefer Sutherland – taking a break from “24”), which already encompasses a brilliant cockroach (Laurie), The Missing Link, like a mini Godzilla (Arnett), Insectasaurus (Giant Bug like thingy) and lastly, BOB (Rogan) a gelatinous blue blob who latterly falls in love with a mound of green jelly.

Most of the movie revolves around fighting a large Robot, who following being serenaded by the US president in a spectacularly unfunny “Close Encounters” parody, proceeds to blow lots of stuff up.

Perhaps the highlight of the film, using the term somewhat loosely, is the attack on the Golden Gate Bridge which attempts to emulate all those old black and white Japanese “monster” movies, that none of the target audience will have ever seen.

Pixar’s recent “Up”, with an equally mad premise, somehow found a heart of gold and an element of substance, despite its many fantastical elements. This film however, which in many ways is much more grounded, conversely feels more adrift with no emotional core or story on which to hang the various chases and fights, that all preteen computer animated movies require.

We have a stellar cast of voice actors but none of them get any lines worth repeating, not even the Mega villain Galaxhar (Wilson) who appears deviously evil one minute and then rather apologetic at the next turn. If you are not going to chew the scenery as a bad guy in an animated movie, what exactly are you saving yourself for?

Susan meanwhile appears to have similar “powers” whether she is small or big. She wraps up all her issues in a “sisters are doing for themselves” type vibe by ditching wimpy Derek (Rudd) towards the end, as he did not stand by her when she was 100 ft tall, though whether she would have seen him if he had, is somewhat debatable.

If there was a message about being true to oneself, which is normal in such movies, this was not conveyed well, or may have been missed during the movies climactic final duel or it may have been the second or third climactic duel. The ultimate fight chase scene being so long, that most kids will have updated their Facebook page, tweeted and sent 50 text messages before they turn their attention back to the screen.

Somewhat concerning is the obvious and clumsy lead into another episode, set in Paris, although one can only hope that BOB and his friends will get caught in French Customs and humanely destroyed.

Summary

Proof if proof were needed, that a computer animated film can no longer be considered good just because it has cool animation, sound and named actors voicing the action.

Bearing in mind the voice talent available and superb animation, this is disappointing on almost every level.