Reviewing Whatever

Monster House, 2006
Big-Screen

You should know
Dan and I wanted to see a movie, as we do. There are many interesting-looking films out: Lady in the Water, Clerks II, and Miami Vice were all on the list. But I'm one of the few geeks of my generation to never have seen Clerks (to be fair, I'm more of a nerd), and the theater we stopped at first only had Monster House; I put it to Dan: "I don't care what we see, but we're already here, so if you don't care either, we might as well stay."

And at first, I doubted my judgement: the nice folks at the ticket booth gave us tickets first for the wrong show, then for the wrong time.

So?
Fortunately, I made the right call. To be honest, I think the theater people gave us the wrong tickets so that we'd end up seeing an earlier show -- we were the only people in the theater for what appeared to be the last show of the night. If we hadn't shown up, they might have been able to go home earlier. Oh well. You do what you're paid for, right?

As I said, we were the only ones in the theater. This was awesome, in that we could make loud (and admittedly inappropriate) comments. It didn't make the experience, though; it merely enhanced it.

The main characters are fairly stereotypical, but there are nice touches -- for instance, when Chowder is asked where his parents are, he casually mentions that his mom is on vacation with her personal trainer. That's the kind of joke a little kid won't get, an older kid would laugh at, and an adult just might say, "Aw, how sad," to... before laughing at the next gag.

Rating
See it. Don't bring kids.
Yes, it looks like a kids' movie. And if it weren't for that fact, I think it could really appeal to the tweens, preteens, and young teenagers who are the main characters' peers. But it's a cartoon about kids, so it may not have the "cool" factor necessary for these groups. I don't know; I've never been cool.

It's definitely not for little kids. There was a nightmare scene that made me jump, and there was plenty of sexual innuendo, which of course Dan and I completely ripped on ("I think he's gay for the vacuum." "...Dan!" "I know, I went there too."). Plus, it was a lot of fun playing Hey, It's That Guy with the voices -- no Cars, mind you, but fun all the same.

The rest of the Internet
The IMDb entry.
It went over well at Rotten Tomatoes.
Richard Roeper loved it.
Eric D. Snider at DVD Talk wasn't as impressed.