By Panicked citizens. Sirens. Destroyed buildings. Military vehicles roaming the streets. It would be easy to dismiss Monsters as some sort of Cloverfield sequel after viewing its trailer. But the similarities begin and end with the presence of a gigantic yet scarcely seen creature. Monsters isn’t “found footageâ€. You’re not going to be subject to nausea-inducing shaky cam as the protagonists run screaming for their lives. There is no first-person narrative here. In fact — for what its title suggests — there aren’t even a whole lot of monsters in Monsters.
And that isn’t such a bad thing.
Monsters begins six years after NASA probe on a mission to find alien life crash-lands in Mexico. Samples onboard the probe mutate into large, squid-like creatures that threaten the lives of Mexico and neighboring countries. The United States has built a massive wall along the US/Mexico border in an effort to keep the creatures at bay, while Mexico has managed to contain the creatures in the northern half of their country in an area dubbed the “infected zoneâ€.Â
We are quickly introduced to Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) an American photographer roaming Mexico desperately seeking a large payday by getting one of…
Panicked citizens. Sirens. Destroyed buildings. Military vehicles roaming the streets. It would be easy to dismiss Monsters as some sort of Cloverfield sequel after viewing its trailer. But the similarities begin and end with the presence of a gigantic yet scarcely seen creature. Monsters isn’t “found footage”. You’re not going to be subject to nausea-inducing shaky cam as the protagonists run screaming for their lives. There is no first-person narrative here. In fact — for what its title suggests — there aren’t even a whole lot of monsters in Monsters.
And that isn’t such a bad thing.
Monsters begins six years after NASA probe on a mission to find alien life crash-lands in Mexico. Samples onboard the probe mutate into large, squid-like creatures that threaten the lives of Mexico and neighboring countries. The United States has built a massive wall along the US/Mexico border in an effort to keep the creatures at bay, while Mexico has managed to contain the creatures in the northern half of their country in an area dubbed the “infected zone”.
We are quickly introduced to Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) an American photographer roaming Mexico desperately seeking a large payday by getting one of these creatures to strike a pose for his camera. On this particular day however, Andrew’s search for the perfect picture has been derailed by his search for his boss’s daughter Samantha (Whitney Able), who has been hospitalized with a minor injury after an attack from one of the creatures. Once Andrew locates her, his boss makes one more request: to escort her safely out of the country.
Monsters is, first and foremost, about these characters. The setting and creatures of the film simply serves as a backdrop for the developing relationship between Andrew and Samantha. For the first 30-40 minutes of the film, your only glimpses of the monsters come in the form of grainy news footage seen on various televisions in the background of certain scenes. The lack of monster encounters early on turns out to be a strength for the film, as I was able to get far more invested in the characters than I ever did with Cloverfield.
Much of the dialogue found in Monsters, even between Andrew and Samantha, is improvised — a move that could’ve spelled disaster had director Gareth Edwards not chosen to cast McNairy and Able in part because they are a real-life couple. The chemistry between the two of them, when paired with the lack of an actual script, actually makes their relationship feel far more real than those seen in typical Hollywood fare. You won’t find Andrew and Samantha trading verbal jabs or outwardly expressing their dislike for each other in an attempt to hide their true feelings. The feelings these characters have for each other didn’t need to be so blatantly expressed through conversation because so much of it could been see in their nervous laughter, flirtatious smiles and longing glances.
Of course, Gareth Edwards deserves credit for more than just his casting foresight – he shot Monsters on a fairly shoestring budget, beautifully at that. The crew often just consisted of the principal cast (McNairy and Able), Edwards himself operating the camera, and a sound operator. Edwards not only edited the film himself, he created all the visual effects seen in the film. No green-screens or animation studios, just some off-the-shelf software. Much of the CGI implemented in Monsters isn’t even the creatures, but military vehicles, pillars of smoke in the distance, and various road signs that help build the atmosphere of this near-future world in which the presence of dangerous alien life forms is commonplace.
7.20 – Good. (7s are good, but not great. These films often have a stereotypical plot or are great movies that have a few minor flaws. Fans of this movie’s genre might love it, but others will still enjoy seeing it in theaters.)
Monsters is far more The Road than it is Cloverfield or District 9. It may not be the creature feature one would hope for from its marketing, but it’s still a solid and enjoyable film all the same and director Gareth Edwards deserves your attention.
