Movie Review: Monsters

Monsters


(In theaters 29 October 2010 -- limited release)


Basic Premise:
Andrew Kaulder is a photography. Samantha Wynden is the daughter of Andrew's boss. Andrew has been tasked with getting Samantha home, after an alien attack leaves her stranded in Mexico. They only have a few days to get across the border before everything shuts down and they're stranded for six months.





Review:
The hubby and I watched this movie via Verizon FIOS OnDemand (paid $10.99 for 48 hour access). This way we got to watch it from the comfort of our own home. It's a good thing too because it sucked. I want my money back.

Paraphrasing my hubby -- Let's take Cloverfield, since it did so well, and rehash the plot. Instead of making the movie half wandering and half aliens, let's make it 95% wandering and 5% aliens.

Please note, I never saw Cloverfield and that's why I'm quoting his take on the movie. For my part, I wanted to bang my head against a wall.

One stupid mistake after another turned this into a much longer movie than it needed to be. It wasn't until some dead bodies showed up that I figured out the purpose of this movie... and it's not entertainment.

This slice-of-life-with-aliens feature is the director's (and/or writer's) social commentary on the perils and disillusionment of illegal immigrants coming to the USA. They just tossed in the aliens so it would end up in the sci-fi section instead of drama. Once I saw the giant wall segregating the USA from Mexico (to keep out the aliens that are predominately in Mexico), I had to shake my head. Anyone who hadn't gotten it at that point would have instantly figured out what was happening.

For those who are thinking you can ignore all that and you just want to see the aliens, you'll be severely disappointed since they don't show up until the latter half of the movie. When they do show up, it's too dark to really see them.

My advice -- save your money. Watch it when it comes on TV. I wouldn't even RedBox this movie since $1 is still too much.



Previews:
Watched it via OnDemand so there were no previews.