by GrahamB on Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:41 am
Monsters, the film, initially looks like it's going to be a mash up of District 9 meets Cloverfield - giant aliens invade earth, as our protagonists struggle to make it out of the infected zone of Mexico and back into the safety of the United States, drawing obvious parallels to US immigration policy, as District 9 did to South African apartheid. However, as our two protagonists start to look as out of place and isolated in the jungles of Mexico as Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson looked lost on the streets of Tokyo, what you actually get is more like Lost in Translation with aliens, as improbable as that sounds. There's a similar 'will they won't they' push and pull dynamic between the actors, as they both struggle to comprehend something much bigger than themselves. In Monsters' case it's literally much bigger - huge, in fact. The aliens are massive, Octopus-like things on legs that seem to delight in squashing the local inhabitants and pulling down tall buildings with their spidery tentacles. Conveniently for the special effects wizards behind the film the monsters prefer to travel at night, rather than in the daytime, but that simply adds to the tension as they suddenly loom out of the darkness, Aliens-style.
All the required political metaphors are here - US planes bombing civilians, the privilege afforded by a US passport over the poor Mexicans who have to risk life and limb to cross the border instead, the eternal cycle of the rise and fall of civilisations (as the couple happen across an ancient Mayan temple in the jungle), not to mention nods to film classics like Easy Rider (carnival time in Mexico) and Heart of Darkness (a scary boat journey up a winding river into the jungle). But it seems to be more of a case of ticking allegory boxes for film reviewers looking for a deeper meaning than a deliberate attempt to make a real statement about anything in particular. It's the human drama that is at the heart of the film - the lives of two people that have somehow drifted way beyond their control, and their desperate, futile attempts to define and course-correct against the overwhelming forces of nature.
McNairy and Able are the only professional actors in the film, and the director Gareth Edwards had no prepared dialog - they simply turned up and shot a scene using whatever and whoever was in the local environment. The results are like a breath of fresh-air compared to the artificially contrived set-pieces that Hollywood requires to deliver bums on seats. And the visuals, augmented by a stunning atmospheric soundtrack, look beautiful - every leaf, every tree, every ripple of reflected sunlight in the water is shot to delicious perfection. The disadvantage is that the film does meander,and lose its direction at times, and the naturalness of the dialogue means it stays pretty simple and mundane. Able in particular seems to need to go to the toilet a lot, which isn't exactly what you want when you're watching a film in a cinema after a beer or two. But if you'd like to step outside of the mainstream and you enjoy a visual feast that refuses to rise to the expected crescendo and seems content instead to let the pieces fall where they may, then Monsters deserves your attention.
Last edited by
GrahamB on Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
. I didnt say it was a bad movie, that it was poorly acted or directed. What i did say, was that you wont be interested in a second viewing, that you dont really feel the characters and dont care about them much, and that by the end of it you will feel like you've seen better and could have better used your time. 
