MONSTERS Vs Aliens promises to be a spectacular animated homage to the classic B-movie horrors of yesteryears, referencing everything from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Godzilla to The Blob.

It will also be the first DreamWorks Animation movie to be completed in 3D (instead of converting the film into 3-D after it is finished), in a bid to amplify the emotional experience of going to the cinema and provide viewers with a reason to get back the big screen experience.

The plot looks fun. When aliens invade Earth with destruction in mind, the government is forced to turn to a ragtag group of monsters it has secretly been hiding to combat the threat.

Among their most recent number is Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), a young woman who was turned into a giant woman when a meteorite from outer space hits her on her wedding day, while further members include former scientist Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), giant blob B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), brave but hapless sea creature The Missing Link (Will Arnett) and Insectosaurus, a giant bug. The team is led by Gen. W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland).

Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, unveiled some of the footage at a special presentation in London on Monday… and the results – in 3D – look impressive.

Scene one involved the President of the United States (voiced by Stephen Colbert) attempting to make contact with the aliens for the first time – extending the hand of piece, and cleverly referencing both Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and, erm, Beverly Hills Cop in the process. It’s an amusing introduction.

Then came a glimpse of the monsters themselves, as Susan is united with her new colleagues for the first time and attempts to come to terms with her predicament. As ever, the attention to detail is brilliant and the characters appear very well drawn indeed – Rogen, especially, stands out because of his distinct, but utterly infectious vocals and laugh.

The third and most spectacular of the sequences involved the monsters battling the first alien invader in the middle of San Francisco, culminating in an almighty confrontation over The Golden Gate Bridge.

Three things were apparent: there’s a tremendous sense of fun in the way the film pays homage to the disaster movie genre; the 3D flies at you but never appears too gimmicky (we’re talking bits of rubble tumbling towards your peripheral vision, etc), and the voice cast appears to be at the top of their game.

Monsters Vs Aliens opens in UK cinemas on April 3, 2009, and on this first evidence could well be one of the animated highlights of the year.

Find out more about the 3D revolution

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