"Cute, colorful, ready-to-merchandise monsters-and-aliens frosting for little folks on one side, and a hearty comic crunch for big folks on the other."

Big-name wits aim and fire at the funny bones of post-30 parents in DreamWorks' 3D-animation war of worlds Monsters vs. Aliens. In this case, the celebrities cashing in on kiddie-cinema include Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Paul Rudd, Hugh Laurie, Steven Colbert and Seth Rogen in arguably his best role yet, as a brainless blob.

The conflict begins with a wedding day disaster that transforms bride-to-be Susan (Witherspoon) into a monster. Not the typical bridezilla that rants about ruby roses that should be scarlet, she's of the over 48-feet variety, capable of crushing wedding guests with her shoe, thanks to a cosmic collision with a meteoroid that makes her a Giantess -- or as the military later dubs her, Ginormica. The military is a secret squad of men in black that swoop in to save the day, not Susan's wedding day but rather the rest of the day for civilians who can't handle the truth of a five-story bride whose clothes strangely yet conveniently are super-size as well (it's a G movie). Soon the sweet, supportive, girl-next-door -- willing to sacrifice her dreams for her self-important groom Derek's (Rudd) anchorman ambitions -- finds herself still single in a cold, steely detention center.

Ginormica's fellow inmates include Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (Laurie), a half-man/half-cockroach; MacGyver the mad scientist who can craft a computer out of a pizza box and a TV antennae; an underwater-weight-lifting amphibian, aka The Missing Link (Arrested Development's Will Arnett), who is out to prove his machismo; Insectosaurus, an unusually large, easily frightened, silk-spewing grub with a taste for Japanese skyscrapers; and last, but hardly least laughable, The Blob 2.0, known as B.O.B., the unexpected byproduct of a snack food experiment. There's no mistaking Seth Rogen as the voice behind the one-eyed, blue goo.

The monstrous misfits are doomed to spend life sequestered from society until an alien, the sarcastically eee-vil squid-thing Gallaxhar (The Office's Dwight) threatens to enslave Earth. Gallaxhar is a diva extraterrestrial that proclaims his conquest is "nothing personal" with the insincerity of a downsizing corporation. U.S. General W. R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) convinces bubble-headed liberal President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert), whose coffee-dispenser button is identical to and next to the nuclear launch button, that monsters are the solution to the alien menace. Susan and her strange posse must save the world.

It's truly a Frosted Mini-Wheats family film, with cute, colorful, ready-to-merchandise monsters-and-aliens frosting for little folks on one side, and a hearty comic crunch for big folks on the other. There are plenty of political idiocy spoofs and kooky homages to sci-fi classics: Think riffs on Al Gore, Herbie Hancock and missiles that read "E.T. Go Home." Not to mention the stoner clueless-ness of the movie's comedy MVP, B.O.B., is adorable. (Of course B.O.B.'s not high, but what Rogen inhaled or didn't inhale in the studio is another matter.) When blob-Rogen chatted up a tub of lime Jell-O, or whenever he merely giggled, "hehehehhehe," I wanted to rush home and order my own stuffed B.O.B.

When the war's finally over, you may not experience a WALL-E cry-fest of emotional catharsis, or see animation that tops that of other recent animated 3-D films (like Coraline), but Monsters vs. Aliens' chuckle-inducing brand of cinematic brain candy is a worthwhile indulgence.

Grade: B+