Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Michael Matthews
Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Jessica Henwick, Dan Ewing, Michael Rooker, Ariana
Greenblatt
Young Adult sci-fi movies set in dystopian near-future worlds rarely
display much in the way of a sense of humour. Refreshingly, director
Michael Matthews (Five Fingers for Marseille) and screenwriters Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson have
adopted a light-hearted approach for their post-apocalyptic romp
Love and Monsters. Think
Zombieland
but with giant '50s b-movie style insects instead of the over-used walking
dead.
As an animated prologue informs us, at some point in the near future
(though far enough for sentient androids to be prevalent) Earth is
threatened when our plant finds itself in the path of a giant asteroid. The
nations of our world unite to develop missiles capable of destroying the
rock, and so it seems we've been saved. But when radiation from the
asteroid's destruction rains down, the insects of Earth grow to giant
proportions, and soon 95% of the human population has been wiped out, with
survivors living underground in fortified bunkers.
It's after seven years of such an existence that we find our hero Joel (Dylan O'Brien
- I can't be the only one who always confuses this guy for Logan Lerman?)
itching to reunite with his high school girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick), whom he just recently established radio contact with. Trouble is, Aimee
lives 85 miles away, and as Joel's bunker buddies warn him, no human has
ever survived such a dangerous journey. Despite having a reputation for
freezing when confronted by monsters - which has led to him always being
left in the bunker when it's time for a supply run or to fend off an attack
- Joel arms himself with a bow and arrow and a map, and sets off across the
giant insect infested landscape.
Joel's journey rarely offers much in the way of originality or
inventiveness as he stumbles into scenarios that feel carbon copied from
similar movies. As with I Am Legend, Joel immediately gains a canine companion (the dog is an incredible
actor, even when performing in front of a greenscreen), which gives the
screenwriters an easy way of getting information across through dialogue,
even though we're already treated to Joel's thoughts through voiceover. Much
of the giant monster action is straight out of Tremors and
Starship Troopers, though the movie lacks the former's charm and the latter's sharp satire.
A love rival in the form of a hunky Australian sailor (Dan Ewing) is
a clone of the blonde-haired fop from the Zucker brothers'
Top Secret.
O'Brien is affable enough as Joel, but after setting him up as a nebbish in
the opening scenes, the film fails to exploit the comic potential of how out
of depth he is. One side effect of the movie resolutely refusing to take
itself seriously is that we never really feel like Joel is in any real
danger. This could have been compensated by playing up the Bob Hope meets
Woody Allen aspect of his character, but the schlemiel of the early scenes
soon evolves into a rather generic action hero.
The film picks up with the introduction of a pair of human travelling
companions for Joel in the form of Michael Rooker, cast against type
as an avuncular survivalist, and Arianna Greenblatt as his precocious
adopted daughter. But once Joel parts ways with this likeable pair, it's
back to him spilling his guts to his dog and getting into uninspired
adventures before the usual CG heavy climax.
Said CG takes away much of the retro charm of
Love and Monsters. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but I suspect I would have found this a
lot more winning if the film had dared to go the whole hog and give us old
school practical FX for its giant monsters. The CG just never fools us into
believing the monsters are sharing the same physical space as Joel and the
other humans.
Love and Monsters is another movie to find unintentional
resonance in our COVID infested time, and its ultimate message - that we
should get out and face the world rather than hiding away in our bunkers -
has a very different impact than the filmmakers could have ever
imagined.
