IR: Monsters

Monsters left us feeling lifted and dumped at the same time. Lifted, because of the beautiful ending, but dumped because it could have been so much better. The plot is basically that a news photographer is given the task of escorting the newspaper bosses daughter home to America from Mexico, where she has been for some unexplained reason. Perhaps working, perhaps a holiday, we are not told.

The situation is that dangerous aliens have landed on Earth in Mexico, in what are now ‘contaminated zones’, not because of the aliens themselves but because of the gas that the military release there to kill them. Parts of Mexico are still safe (ish) and this is where most Mexicans live. Just as this photographer is given this assignment, the aliens are encroaching on land that has previously been safe and so this has to be sealed off. This land just happens to be the route home. Narrowly missing the last ferry, the pair decide to travel by land through the dangerous zones rather than wait six months for the route to be cleared.

Many of us would rather face aliens than this.

The best element of this film is the character journeys; both begin as unsympathetic characters but become, or reveal themselves as, better people. The man starts off having a drunken one-night-stand with a local girl and getting the lady’s passport stolen, and seems to be very mercenary in his views on getting paid to photograph dead children for the paper. By the end, he has put his camera to one side to engage in the world around him, and is revealed to have a son for whom he cares deeply. The lady starts off with her perfect privileged life all planned out ahead of her, but ends up valuing her experiences more than the cosy certainty that America can promise her.

The reason I say it could have been done much better is because the camera shots are often unimaginative and cheesy, showing us shots we’ve seen over and over before, and also the aliens are literally just giant octopuses with stompy spiders legs and light-up tentacles. How unimaginative. They weren’t completely awful, they did exhibit a few interesting features, but seriously, they had complete carte blanche to make them anything, and they fall back on giant sea creatures on land.

RUN! It's coming right for us!

To sum up; disappointing in areas but a beautiful ending, would recommend if you relish the prospect of criticising it for a long time afterwards with your friends as we did.

3/5


Monsters came highly recommended by a fellow film buff who had seen it in Edinburgh. Sad then that it turned out to be a film I admire much more than like...and most of my admiration comes from what I know about how it was made (on a shoestring, minimal crew, the director personally making all the impressive special effects) rather than the film itself.
Before I start my criticism, the good things: the footage itself is gorgeous, demonstrating the power and potential of high definition video. The central ideas are clever and carried with much more consistency of tone than those of its spiritual cousin District 9. The acting is fairly solid and the special effects really are amazing, blending reality and fantasy with truly remarkable skill. The story structure feels like a real sequence of events, even if the actual elements are rather staid (see below) and its presented well.
However, there are flaws, rather big ones, which I will now outline for you.


First: The Cliches.
Although Monsters had a fair few unique and original bits, there are far too many hackneyed plot points. Reluctant underling escorting the bosses daughter? Check. An unlikely love-or-hate chalk-and-cheese romance? Check. Friendly, partying locals? Check. Friendly, hard-working locals who haven't got much but are willing to let whitey into their homes to patronise them and their kids? Check. Shot where someone is dragged off by a monster into the darkness and then a pause followed by their mangled corpse and/or vehicle spat back accompanied by a loud and scary noise? You'd best believe it. None of these things on their own are bad devices, but I've seen every one of them so often its just predictable and boring. We KNOW from the get go that the main characters will turn out more than friends. We KNOW that the jungle guides are doomed to be eaten, and that man is the real monster. These are not surprises, and it is a shame a film with such an interesting set up gets so boring so quickly. The first few scenes, before our heroes actually begin their journey, are by far the most original.

Second: Treating the audience a bit like they a too dumb to notice a point.
Many films are guilty of this crime, but Monsters contains at least one instance that beggars belief, which I will share with you in brief: Andrew, our photographer hero, actually says 'There's a change in the vibe' at the VERY MOMENT when the music, pacing and feel of the film changes. THANKS ANDREW, WE NOTICED. And don't use the word vibe, this is not the 1970s or the early 1990s when it was ironically cool.

Unlike the Hammer-Man who was ACTUALLY cool.

This is only the worst of many such offences, which you can spot yourself. Gareth Edwards hasn't quite got his head round the fact that working with film means you can SHOW things, you don't have to spell them out, especially with the kind of crowd who want to watch this film.

Third: The central characters and their personal lives.
I feel harsh knocking the acting, or even the writing, since as far as I know the whole thing was improvised on a sort of road trip. But you can't forgive a piece of art or grant it special mercy because of its birth. I has to speak for itself. And so I shall say this: I did not like the main characters, I didn't believe their love story sub plot and I could only care slightly less about their boring problems. Fine, I know that at the first introduction Poor Little Rich Girl and Mercenary Photo-McKodak are supposed to be interestingly flawed, especially Andrew and his awkward drunken come-ons, but for my money they do not redeem themselves nearly enough throughout their road trip. I don't think they are evil, or that they deserve the mass of bad luck and difficulty poured on them by fate, but ultimately they are just rather unlikable. Sorry guys.

Fourth: The zero dirt factor. This is something that ALWAYS irritates me in films; that characters will go through seven kinds of hell, endure masses of physical hardship and still look like they stepped out of a hair advert. Now this was to a much lesser extent than its mainstream counterparts, but seriously, these guys sleep rough for what feels like a fortnight and yet they look fine. Would it kill you to do use a sweat spray or muss some hair? Or was their something in the actors contracts stipulating that they had to look good at all times?

50 bottles of this to be delivered every morning.

Fifth: The Monsters themselves and the final scene (SPOILER ALERT!)
I said the effects were brilliant, and they are. But as for the design...not so much. We have seen the titular monsters a dozen times before; they are wavey-tentacled vaguely aquatic octopus things. Everything from Halo to Cloverfield to certain niche anime series have things exactly like them, not to mention the obvious similarities to Great Cthulhu.
Anyhoo, we see them in all their glowy glory in the final sequence, towering and beautiful, apparently engaged in the act of mating which is far more refined in them than in humans. This truly heart-stopping encounter could provide a valuable insight into the creatures' true nature, making them a thing of beauty to be studied and not feared, maybe saving the lives of those who are in the way of the bombing and chemical poisoning being carried out by the military throughout the contaminated zones. And then Snappy McPictures DOESN'T. GET. HIS. CAMERA. Instead he decides to hold hands and sigh with Pixieboots Lotsacash, who LETS HIM.
Just one photograph could cause a cultural, political and scientific revolution, not to mention setting them up for life. Inexcusable. And seconds later I had to stifle a laugh as they went in for a kiss (gasp! Never saw that coming) and Samantha decides to chew Andrew's incredibly stubbly bottom lip. Maybe she was fantasising she was eating a baby hedgehog.

SPOILERZ OVER!

Despite the problems, what is most important about this film is that it shows real potential. Gareth Edwards and his crew will most certainly have an interesting future career, which I will watch carefully.

2/5