Monsters is well-made and well-shot on a tiny budget (under a million, around 800K), but if you’re going by the title alone, the movie is ultimately a failure. There just aren’t enough monsters in Monsters to make it a must-see for fans of creature features like Godzilla or The Host. Monsters is a mix of Cloverfield and District 9, and while it’s not great, at least it’s not racist, gory and pointless like District 9 was. Monsters is a parable about immigration and that’s a worthy subject, even if it is handled in a ham-fisted, obvious manner.
A photographer and the boss’s daughter desperately try to reach the US border and escape the “infected zone” in Mexico and the aliens running rampant around there. The US government has built a massive wall (very subtle commentary) to keep the “creatures” in Mexico, where they are unable to terrorize suburban hipsters and mall dwellers in the United States. The human characters in Monsters are not particularly bad, just not very interesting. Writer/director Gareth Edwards has made a few startling visual effects on the cheap and his aliens are creepy and effective when they do finally show up. By then it’s too little too late. A few extras including a commentary and some deleted and extended scenes also pop up on the DVD.
Monsters is a well-meaning failure. It’s surely worth a rental and will divide audiences right down the middle. Some will cheer the ham-fisted pro-immigration message and love story while others will just be bored, awaiting the aliens to rampage. Edwards has talent though, and he was just hired to direct a big Godzilla feature, that should be interesting and well worth a look.
GRADE: B-
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