Monsters

Tentacles and tequilas.

When bash­ing out the spe­cial FX for Mon­sters, the com­mute for Gareth Edwards was all of two yards from his bed to his com­puter. At least that’s what it looked like in a recent TV inter­view with movie brain and critic named after a portable shit­house, Mark Ker­mode.

Some job. I do a sim­i­lar thing when writ­ing reviews. Except my method­ol­ogy usu­ally involves stay­ing in the bed, rather than get­ting out of it. If my arms were longer, like the big ten­ta­cles of the tit­u­lar beast­ies of the movie, it’d be much eas­ier. I could prob­a­bly laze around under the sheets, my wrig­gly arms scrib­bling a review in a calf­skin note­book ensconced in a dia­mond encrusted pedestal (I’ve always wanted a calf­skin note­book ensconced in a dia­mond encrusted pedestal, but they’re always out of stock in Tescos), whilst another ten­ta­cle gets busy crack­ing open a brewski.

Gareth Edwards has been a lot more proac­tive. Which is why he’s a movie maker, and I’m another in a long line of bums writ­ing movie reviews when they can be both­ered. Once out of his bed, he took on a hell of a lot for one guy. Direct­ing, writ­ing, and of course, spe­cial FX.

Because of this, it seems almost rude to crit­i­cise the film too much. How­ever, because I’m a bit of a twat, I’m going to do just that.

Wait… I think I see a McDon­alds over there!

A pho­tog­ra­pher (Scoot McNairy) has been tasked to get his boss’s daugh­ter, a daddy’s girl played by Whit­ney Able, back home. Eas­ier said than done, because home is on the other side of the infected zone, a chunk of Mex­ico that’s pretty much off lim­its thanks to the rather mas­sive aliens that are now liv­ing there.

Thanks to the bud­get con­straints, the mon­sters are fleet­ingly glimpsed, or their alien howls drift through the trees, our heroes look­ing or lis­ten­ing with apprehension.

I wel­come films that are will­ing to leave some­thing to the viewer’s imag­i­na­tion, but in the case of Mon­sters, the spar­sity of alien action left me feel­ing a bit dis­ap­pointed. When the mon­sters are off­screen, there is lit­tle sense of dan­ger, and the trip through the infected zone — save for one or two scenes — is largely uneventful.

Indeed, Able gets by just wear­ing a pair of shorts and a vest like she’s tak­ing a trip to the local newsagents for a pint of milk, rather than some epic jour­ney across a land stuffed with big scary monsters.

There’s sleep­ing on buses, sleep­ing on trains, sleep­ing on boats, sleep­ing with pros­ti­tutes, and drink­ing tequila in what is essen­tially a beau­ti­fully shot trav­el­ogue across a ‘shat­tered around the edges’ landscape.

When the mon­sters aren’t around, the focus moves to McNairy and Able. And for a cou­ple of peo­ple who are actu­ally mar­ried in real life, they have a sur­pris­ing lack of chem­istry onscreen. Their bud­ding romance never really convinces.

“Edwards has achieved much with a pal­try $500,000 bud­get, and I can’t help but admire his sheer gumption.”

Towards the end of the film, they start being a bit more inter­est­ing, but the shift is sud­den. It’s like the plot’s call­ing for them to start feel­ing a bit philo­soph­i­cal, rather than because of any change in their char­ac­ter. There’s a “mes­sage”, you see, in there somewhere.

And yet, despite all the nig­gles, the film’s hard to dis­like. Edwards has achieved much with a pal­try $500,000 bud­get, and I can’t help but admire his sheer gump­tion. Mon­sters is a brave attempt to do some­thing dif­fer­ent with an aliens invad­ing Earth story. The mon­sters them­selves are never less than beau­ti­fully realised, their move­ments grace­ful, and rather sad. Even when they’re in a rage, and on the attack.

A good, albeit flawed, debut. It’ll be inter­est­ing to see what Edwards does next. With the money he’s made off the back of this, he’s prob­a­bly sourc­ing the mate­ri­als for a calf­skin note­book ensconced in a dia­mond encrusted pedestal. Or tak­ing deliv­ery of a new hot tub filled with Page 3 girls.

I hate him.