Monsters, aka the most boring monster movie ever

Greetings fellow Bog Leeches,

I just finished watching the film Monsters by Gareth Edwards. I hadn't read any reviews of the film beforehand, since it is always nice to be surprised by a film with a rather intriguing premise.

...Wow. This movie is awful.

Picture Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, except instead of having a plot, imagine it being about two vacuous dull-faced people wandering around aimlessly while discussing the first thing that comes into their heads.

Okay, let me back up. Monsters takes place in a world where spores from space have caused Mexico to become invaded by giant land octopi. No, really, they're just giant octopi. I'm amazed at how lazy the creature design in this film is, but honestly the scenes of the U.S. military being bested by giant octopi are legitmately pretty funny to watch. A pity the creatures are only in the film for about 5 minutes.

The rest of the film is devoted to two people trying to get to safety, but who seem to continually end up close to the danger due to their own ineptitude. The film tries to build up a sense of dread atmosphere with some convincing local extras (who would have been far more interesting leads), but the editing and direction is so amateurish and choppy that it just comes across as padding. The scenes of dialogue, few though they are, don't help. Here is one example.

Man: "I always wanted to work behind a cash register."

Woman: "You look good behind a cash register. You should give up your camera."

Man: "So, what are you going to do tomorrow?"

Woman: "I don't know. What are you going to do tomorrow?"

Man: "I don't know."

And every single bit of their dialogue is like this. I think it is supposed to come across as natural and charming. I found it incredibly annoying. Keep in mind that these people have seen mass carnage, ruined cities, and alien life forms, and every time they just kind of shrug with an expression that says, "well, that happened."

So yeah, when I finished watching this movie I was sure it must have bombed big time, but when I checked Rotten Tomatoes...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters-2010/

71% FRESH?! What? How? This movie was horrendous!

Check out Roger Ebert's review. The man must be trolling:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...VIEWS/101119967

Wow. So, it looks like Garth Edwards's star is rising, because apparently film making that features no plot and long drawn out scenes of nothing is popular these days. I can't wait to see his take on Godzilla, because if anybody can make a 100 metre atomic reptile boring, this guy can.

Yeah monster was just dull, it failed to deliver on a cool idea. Also the movies potical under tones don't mesh smoothly with the flim/

I refuse to judge it until I see it myself.

But yeah I was already having some suspicions that the new Godzilla movie was going to go down the same road as the Bayformers and be centered around some shitty humans no one cares about, rather than the characters we came to see.

I honestly could not believe how dull this film was. By the end I was laughing out loud at the dialogue and the shocking 'twist' ending.

But yes, apparently this stuff is gold. I'm going to have to stop watching movies.

I see they spared no expense coming up with the title.

Yeah, but the ending makes you wonder who the REAL giant land octopi are!

Wait, not it doesn't, because aside from a few black and white text boxes at the beginning of the film, the film spends 0% of its run time explaining the aliens.

Can we get a pciture of the aliens, pretty please?

I actually can't seem to find a page which shows the aliens, but here is a billboard in the movie featuring one:

http://www.indiewire.com/film/monsters/

One thing I will say is that, considering the film's low budget and the fact that much of the effects work was done by the director himself, the film is technically impressive. It's just a pity the director literally had nothing to say.

And just to give you an idea of what watching this movie is like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XANBoG0OUzg

One can say that this movie is... not all that it's quacked up to be!

http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=csi

They're significantly more abstract than "just giant land octopuses."

But yes, even having been told beforehand that it was just a "road movie" and "character film" with a few seconds of aliens, I STILL didn't expect it to be as vapid and pointless as it was. It was one of the worst movies I ever saw in my life. There was positively zero reason to care about the two main characters, there was nothing interesting or relatable about them in the slightest.

The only good thing about the movie is (SPOILUR) how it all just builds up to the girl getting blown to kingdom come.

Ironically enough, I just got back from watching the movie, then this delightful thread popped up!

This movie was incredibly underwhelming when comparing it to what I've heard of it. Boring characters, bad pacing, laughable dialog. This film has it all. I also love how they try to make the characters seem likeable, but really you just want to Kinniku drive them into oblivion.

I'll stop you there, and you're lying.

Really though, I swear that the monster is just an octopus character model that Gareth Edwards modified a bit by adding a few tentacles and adding bones to other tentacles to make legs. To be honest though, I don't mind that much, and I actually kind of admire Gareth Edward's audacity in this regard.