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Still, once in a while, an animated film manages to wrangle up big Hollywood talents that are actually exciting to see together, instead of just name-checking hot stars a la Shark Tale, Over the Hedge or Madagascar. It shows a grouping that's usually unlikely.

Monsters vs. Aliens is such a case. This next outing by DreamWorks (the repeat offender on all the films I just listed) features the voices of Hugh Laurie, Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon, Stephen Colbert, Will Arnett, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Rainn Wilson. Maybe DreamWorks has moved away from looking at hot movie stars and turned to hot TV stars.

What's interesting too are the characters they play. Either it's a very good casting job or a really lazy one, because they're all playing characters familiar to them.

• Hugh Laurie is Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D -- a brilliant scientist with the head of an insect. Who wants to bet that he used his House voice instead of his natural English voice?
• Kiefer Sutherland is the gruff army general W.R. Monger. Let's hope for a few well placed "DAMMIT, WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"
• Stephen Colbert voices the President of the United States. This one is almost too obvious.
• Seth Rogen plays a gelatinous blob named B.O.B. Figure it out.
• Will Arnett is a half-ape, half-fish macho dude dubbed The Missing Link. In other words, the role Will Arnett was born to play.
• Reese Witherspoon is Ginormica, basically your typical Reese Witherspoon Cali girl, except she's 50-foot tall.
• Paul Rudd is... who else? The tragic boyfriend of Ginormica. Duh.
• Rainn Wilson is the evil alien Gallaxhar. I'm willing to bet that the character is basically what it'd be like if Dwight Schrute tries to take over the world. Just because.

Of course, that's not to say that it's a bad thing. It'll be fun, and it might work to its advantage having these familiar voices play roles that are familiar, so the characters fall into place naturally and it's not as distracting as hearing Steve Carrell's voice as a squirrel or whatever.

The trick also is that it has a really fun premise. Even without the solid cast, this sounds like something that could potentially be a lot of fun. It's the meeting of the two biggest trends of the 50's creature features--a real Sci-Fi throwback.

When California girl Susan Murphy (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) is unexpectedly clobbered by a meteor full of outer space gunk on her wedding day, she mysteriously grows to 49-feet-11-inches tall and is instantly labeled a "monster" named Ginormica. The military jumps into action, and she is captured and held in a secret government compound. The world learns that the military has been quietly rounding up other monsters over the years. This ragtag group consists of the brilliant but insect-headed Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (voiced by Hugh Laurie); the macho half-ape, half-fish The Missing Link (voiced by Will Arnett); the gelatinous and indestructible B.O.B. (voiced by Seth Rogen); and the 350-foot grub called Insectosaurus. Their confinement time is cut short however, when a mysterious alien robot lands on Earth and begins storming the country.

As a last resort, under the guidance of General W.R. Monger (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) (on a desperate order from The President (voiced by Stephen Colbert)), the motley crew of Monsters is called into action to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent destruction.

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