American photojournalist Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) is working in Central America until he phones the office and is told to drop everything and ensure his bosses daughter Sam (Whitney Able – McNairy’s real life then girlfriend now wife) gets home safely. The only complication is that the movie is set against a backdrop of an “infected zone” where giant extraterrestrial creatures roam around. The American and Mexican military attempt to contain and control them causing more devastation than the creatures themselves.
We are told from the opening text that the infection and the creatures came from a crashed NASA space probe that had discovered alien life Jupiter’s moon Europa. Don’t expect to see a “monster movie” this is about the people not the creatures (I don’t think the word monster is actually used in the movie) the real story here is that of a road movie. As is often the case with road movies where the supporting cast are somewhat transient a lot rests on the shoulders of the main actors, this is especially true here as so many of the supporting cast are none actors found along the way (this really is guerrilla filmmaking!). The surprising thing is that based on their performances here I can’t believe Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able aren’t bigger stars. My only past experience of either of them is McNairy’s starring role in the brilliant indie movie In Search of a Midnight Kiss (go find the DVD if you haven’t seen it). I think that is about to change, they both have a lot of projects ahead of them.
In interviews I have heard director Gareth Edwards talking about the subtext of the movie reflecting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is all very evident but look a little deeper and he has managed to achieve something more profound and more fundamental. Like all great road movies there is an existential thread running through perfectly played out through the characters particularly Sam. Borrowing equally from Apocalypse Now, Jurassic Park and It Happened One Night it is a road movie, a monster movie, an allegorical tale and a story about life and love; all this could have been a mess but not only brilliantly constructed it also appears strangely effortless in its delivery.
There is a lot of talk about the movies budget, I have heard suggestions ranging from $16,000 to $1million, however you look at it, it is considerably cheaper than Skylines $10million or Avatars $300million. All this is irrelevant; good is good and bad is bad regardless of budget, so how good is Monsters? Let’s put it like this, unless there are six or seven amazing films released in the next two weeks monsters will appear pretty high in my top ten movies of the year.
Five Stars out of Five
wow! 5 out of 5! It is good… but 5 out of 5? I just think that for a first-time filmmaker its incredibly good – but it sure is nice to see the brits trump the us in the SKYLINE vs MONSTERS… clearly MONSTERS has trumped SKYLINE in every respect. Well done brit filmmakers!
Simon
http://www.screeninsight.com
I’m not sure it is worth Five out of Five but it just seemed better than four and I decided earlier in the year not to give half stars so it got promoted.
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Hi fandangogroovers, (and Simon),
On behalf of Magnolia Pictures and the movie’s producers, many thanks for plugging “Monsters” … .. thanks also, on behalf of the distributors and producers, for not posting any pirate copies or non-trailer clips of “Monsters” and if you / your readers want good quality, non-pirated, previews, then the official trailer is available for fans and bloggers to post / host / share etc at http://monstersthemovie.com/… .. for further details of on-line promotions for this movie and Magnolia releases generally, check-out http://www.magpictures.com and their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/MagnoliaPictures .
Thanks again for your plug.
Regards,
WEB SHERIFF
Definitely worth a look, then? Cool.
That half-star thing always bothered me – even ten points on a scale never seemed a great way to compare things. I men, you’ll have a lot of films sharing rankings which probably don’t really deserve to (does Monsters deserve to be measured against “the best of the best”, for example?). I suppose the same logic applies however large your scale though.
I suppose this is my justification for not ranking, even though I know rankings are user-friendly.
Yes, I know what you mean. I have only started doing ratings this year and only do them for this years movie (I don’t bother when reviewing an old movie). I have given four movies five stars. When I look back on all the movies I have seen this year (ranked from 1 to 105 so far) Kick-Ass at number five is the highest placed four star movie and is considerably better than Exam at number 45. Ratings aren’t everything, I have two star movies that I enjoyed and four star movies that I will probably never see again.
Damn! 5 stars! When I first heard about his a couple months ago, heard nothing but disappointment. But ever since then, it’s been rave reviews across the board. Need to see this. Good review, man.
Its all a matter of expectation and perception, if you are expecting an all action alien invasion movie like Independence Day or Skyline you will probably be disappointed. If you are looking for an intelligent thoughtful road movie with a sci-fi twist you will love it.
Fands i disagree with you about everything but i have to say the five stars are probably merited in that there wasnt really any part of the film that didnt work.
Man, I really dug this movie. It’s simple, straightforward, quietly romantic, and tense, and it’s the kind of socially-conscious and idea driven science fiction that we seem to get so rarely (even if the last couple of years have seen something of a resurgence in the genre). Whatever the budget, it was still made on the cheap with a limited crew and that they were able to get this kind of material out of so little remains impressive. It’s a beautiful movie. I’m not sure if it’s on my top ten, but it’s definitely up there.
I remember seeing a trailer for this a while ago. I’ll be sure to try to get it on netflix at some point