A Thomas Bess review of:
Directed By: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy
Running Time: 94 minutes spent wondering why folks don’t pay more attention to the safety of their passports.
The more I think about it, the more I come to realize that “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is one of the silliest phrases in the English language. Of course you can judge a book by its cover, that’s the whole point of covers in the first place, to give a potential reader an idea of what is contained within its pages. For instance, if I picked up a book with a picture of a raving maniac threatening a cowering co-ed with a belt sander, I wouldn’t buy it in hopes of enjoying a light romantic farce; I’d buy it because I wanted to see fools getting tore up with power tools. So yeah, while it’s wrong to judge people on looks alone (I speak with the experience of one sporting abnormally bushy facial hair) there’s nothing wrong with judging books by their covers. The same rule should apply with movies (or at least their titles). Something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre leaves very little room for ambiguity, you know absolutely what you’re going to get and can make a decision regarding viewing accordingly. (If you somehow manage to wander into such a movie and come out shocked or upset by the content, it’s safe to say you’re beyond help and should just avoid the theater entirely. The rest of us thank you in advance.) It’s when filmmakers start to deviate from this formula that problems can arise. Case in point, Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, a fine little slice of sci-fi goodness that’s probably going to cheese off a good number of viewers because well, there’s just not that many monsters to be found therein.
The Plot
Our story picks up six years after a NASA probe brought some wonky bacteria back from the icy depths of space. Said probe just happened to crash in the middle of Mexico and shortly thereafter the chupacabra is replaced by giant land-loving octopi as the primary otherworldly threat to the region. Half of the country is quarantined as an “Infected Zone” and it seems to be working pretty well, though it has put a serious damper on travel plans for anyone trying to get back and forth between the two countries. Such is the plight of Samantha Wynden (Able), a tourist looking to get home to her fiancé before the end of the season makes travel around the Infected Zone impossible. Lucky for Samantha, her daddy’s got a whole lotta money and an employee in the area, a slightly squirrely photographer named Andrew Kaulder (McNairy) who grudgingly agrees to get her to safety, if only to score points with the boss. All is going well up until the morning of departure when passports are lost and the nice, safe ferry back to America leaves them stranded. But wait, there’s another way! Thanks to some well timed bribery and a willingness to take risks that I can’t even fathom, Samantha and Andrew end up on the scenic route back to the good ol’ U.S. of A., one that takes them through the heart of the Infected Zone. Along the way they’ll discover things about themselves, their companion and life itself, including such useful lessons as how to avoid being eaten by a tentacled horror from beyond the stars.
The Good
What’s good? Considering that it’s basically a two person show, the leads in Monsters needed to be damned strong and I’m pleased to say they both do a fine job. As Samantha, Able is never afforded an Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor style moment, but despite her understandable trepidation you get the feeling that she could make / survive the trip without any assistance. As the aforementioned assistance, McNairy plays Kaulder as a man who knows he’s doing distasteful work (pictures of children killed by a creature net him 50K, pictures of living, breathing kids net zilch) but keeps on because he’s good at it and has a family to support. Thankfully there’s not much in the way of snarky banter pitched between the two, they come off exactly like they should, two strangers thrown together by extraordinary circumstances now working toward a common goal. As for the creatures in their way, they’re done very well and possess a sense of scale and overall weight that’s so often lacking from CGI monstrosities these days. And though you never actually see them doing much in the way of actual destruction, the numerous shots of the aftermath of their presence (hollowed out buildings, a boat resting atop the trees near a riverbank) make for some of the film’s most powerful images.
The Not So Good
But that strength leads into what I’d consider the film’s greatest weakness, the overall lack of the monsters in question. Don’t get me wrong, you see them several times throughout the film (in fact you probably see more of them than you did of the creature in Cloverfield) but more often than not it’s on a television broadcast or a corpse that’s been left to rot by the military. This approach certainly works for building an ominous mood, but at no point did it seem that our leads were in any real danger, partly because the beasties come off more as confused animals wandering a new habitat at the zoo as opposed to some malevolent force bent on world domination. Again, a great departure from the standard formula and it does keep the focus on the human characters, but…don’t call it Monsters. Call it The Infected Zone or The Road Home or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Calamari”. Really, anything other than Monsters would’ve been a better title, because there are certain expectations when you start throwing around the M word and even though this flick does most everything right, as an honest to God “monster movie” it leaves much to be desired. “Well, of course”, someone is saying, “it’s not a monster movie, it’s a story about people finding themselves!” To which I say fine, just don’t call it Monsters and lace your trailer with images reminiscent of the classic giant monster movies of yesteryear. That sort of misdirection will lead to certain folks being pissed off because it’s not what they wanted, while people who might’ve enjoyed it for what it actually is stay away because they think it’s nothing more than a dude in a rubber suit smashing things.
Should You See It?
Should you see it? If you’re looking for something in the vein of Cloverfield or District 9, I’d suggest you take a pass, though it does make an interesting double feature with the latter. If, however, you’re looking for a good story about people making their way in a world that just happens to be dealing with marauding space octopi, then by all means find some like-minded friends and give it a shot.
The Verdict
If an absolute lack of giant monsters is awful and being overrun by them is perfect, I’d say Monsters is watching the news report that says they’ve landed in Mexico. Creepy, but not enough to set you worrying.
Til next time, always remember that the calls are coming from inside the house.
Tom Bess recently shaved his legendary sideburns at a cost of two hours and five pounds. The end result is a slightly puffier, but much more aerodynamic movie-reviewing machine who is still patiently waiting for Allison Mack to return his calls. While he’s waiting, he’ll read copious amounts of Lovecraft and eat too many Peach Gummy Bears.
