Hopes that Monsters vs. Aliens would join that happy list of out-of-this-world animated films — Monsters, Inc.; WALL•E — are quickly dashed as this flat-footed venture unfolds on screen.

There’s no oomph to its story, which travels with nary an interesting sidestep from Point A to Point B with a crew of characters who are not the least bit compelling. That’s odd, considering that one of them is a 50-foot woman, another is a brainy, talking cockroach and another is a blue, one-eyed gelatinous blob named B.O.B.

But each of them has a definite lack of personality. The one called Insectosaurus looks like a demented giant chipmunk and it is not until the end of the film that one discovers it’s a caterpillar about to turn into a butterfly. There’s no depth to the characters to draw one into the film’s plot in which Earth’s monsters are sent to battle four-eyed, big-headed, spindly-legged creatures from a distant planet. They’ve sent an enormous Alien Robot to Earth to snatch a precious metal called quantonium, destroying the planet in the process.

But Monsters vs. Aliens begins not with monsters, but with plans for a wedding.

Susan Murphy (voice by Reese Witherspoon) is in excited preparations for her walk down the aisle with TV weatherman Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd).

But outside the church, just after learning from Derek that her Paris honeymoon is off so he can instead audition for an anchorman job in Fresno, Susan is clobbered by a space-junk-filled meteor.

Before she can say “I do,” Susan has grown to 50 feet tall and is whisked off to a secret government prison where she’s renamed Ginormica and locked up with other monsters including B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), Insectosaurus, Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) and a big-lipped half-ape, half-fish called The Missing Link (Will Arnett).

This collection of characters would seem ripe for zany gags and one-liners, but the script by Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky doesn’t offer much to tickle the funny bone. Worse, the characters are what they are and don’t provide many incentives for one to care about their situations, least of all the whiny Susan.

The leader of the outer space aliens, Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) is straight from a bad 1950s’ sci-fi film. The rest of the film’s major characters are also descendants of such ’50s’ films as Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, Invaders from Mars, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob and Mothra. As such, it’s clear that Monsters vs. Aliens hasn’t much new to offer. Codirectors Rob Letterman (Shark Man) and Conrad Vernon keep it on a predictable path.

Young children might like the blazing colors and crazy creatures. More often they will likely be bewildered by such sights as the U.S. president (Stephen Colbert) trying to communicate with the just-landed Alien Robot by playing notes on an electronic keyboard, just they way they did in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a movie that was a hit 32 years ago.

**Monsters vs. Aliens

Voices: Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Paul Rudd, Stephen Colbert, Kiefer Sutherland.

Rated: PG, contains violence, adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com