B.O.B.'s Big Break

It's 1968. Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) has a plan to escape the secret facility and General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). He with The Missing Link (Will Arnett) throw a birthday party for the unsuspecting B.O.B. (Seth Rogen). He feeds B.O.B. a special cake which is supposed to turn him into a bomb. Instead, B.O.B. gains the ability to read minds. The gang is fun but the place is not. I never really liked the secret base other than as a place to escape from. Having a reminder that the group is trapped in there is not that fun. This is a functional short which gives the characters a fun action time.

I was not a huge fan of "Monsters Versus Aliens". It was decent enough entertainment, but certainly not a must-see film. After all, there have been quite a few 3-D CGI films and this one was no better or worse than most of them. Watchable, certainly, but that's about all. Well, my opinion of "B.O.B.'s Big Break" (a special feature on the DVD for "Monsters Versus Aliens") is pretty much the same--it's entertaining but certainly nothing exceptional. This short is a prequel to the full-length film, as Susan is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Dr. Cockroach, the Missing Link and B.O.B. star in the film--with some support by the General. Fortunately, all are voiced by the original character actors. The story involves Doc Cockroach and the Missing Link trying to use B.O.B. in order to escape their captivity in a government complex. As for B.O.B., he's oblivious as to what is happening and believes he's having a birthday party--while Doc Cockroach is actually trying to turn him into a giant bomb. Where this goes is nice fun and naturally the General has something to say about all this. The film has nice CG animation and decent characters and story, but nothing ever makes this THAT interesting. If you saw the movie and not this short, I wouldn't say you need to hurry to get around to seeing it.

Animated films, also short films, have developed so nicely in recent years that standards are pretty high these days for me. "B.O.B.'s Big Break" is a 13-minute film from 6 years ago and directly linked to "Monsters vs. Aliens". The voice cast has some pretty big names in it, but sadly this little Dreamsworks film comes short in terms of story. It has no real dramatic impact or emotional impact and that is already a bad thing. Now, the film really needs to make up for it in the fun area, in terms of comedy, to be still a convincing watch. This film does not. Most of the jokes here fell only included for the sake of being funny instead of actually being funny. This one is really only for the biggest fans of the feature film and I can see writer and director Robert Porter has worked on many well-known animated movies, but only in minor positions. His work here is not memorable at all. Not recommended.