Monsters (2022)

Monstrous and not in the good way

Monsters was a cheap, confusing film which wouldn’t have been a bad thing if it had been funny or scary. Five people ended up in a monster prison that was sealed in four dimensions but wasn’t impregnable. The ancient creators were super geniuses but forgot about solar eclipses which caused the singularity solar space time quantum magnetic black hole multiverse prison to glitch.

Long before humans crawled down from the trees, giants ruled the Earth. Everything was hunky dory until an underground explosion spewed up lethal monsters that ate everything in their path. The giants decided to leave Earth but eleven warriors stayed behind and caged the monsters. A gazillion years later Gao Fei and her sidekick Su Jun Bao race to the site where her sister, Gao Wei, disappeared a year earlier during a solar eclipse. As luck would have it another eclipse is about to begin. Fei is ready to jump through the newly formed ripples when Zhang Mu Sheng drops in wielding a knife and attacks Fei. Why you ask? Who knows. Jun Bao is accidentally knocked into the portal. When Mu Sheng refuses to relent Fei bounces both of them through the portal before it closes. An observer, Ayo Sayi, finds her way through the portal as well. Hiding in the deep forest is a monster who has a Black Canary cry that disables its prey before it attacks. As the group wanders through the woods, they keep happening upon other people who look just like them, both living and dead. Fei just wants to survive, find her sister, and get everyone safely home.

The creators failed at world building on multiple levels which dragged this movie down. It could have been a translation problem but the characters’ efforts to explain what was going on were just confusing word salads of scientific terms. It seemed liked the creators used the whole black hole singularity multiverse quantum physics explanation so that they could kill off character without having to sacrifice the main characters. How did beings intelligent enough to build a fourth-dimension prison powered by the sun not take into account solar eclipses? Total solar eclipses happen around every 18 months. And how in the heck would a solar eclipse be any more problematic than nighttime? A solar eclipse doesn’t block the sun for the whole planet. The nocturnal beasts didn’t seem to have any problem coming out in the daytime either.

Along with world building, the characters were a mess. Gao Fei knew her sister disappeared through a mysterious portal. She planned to go through it as well when it appeared again. She brought no food, water, weapon, or backpack. To show she was ready for anything she wore a white sports bra instead of a shirt. The Observer in an elaborate costume and wig was not properly attired for traipsing through the forest and fighting off a monster either, although she at least carried a sword. Mu Sheng went from trying to kill Fei to becoming best buddies with her in whiplash fashion. And poor Jun Bao was given a list of scientific terms to rattle off in no particular order. Most of the characters were knocked unconscious at least once. If they survived their ordeal they all needed to schedule CTscans upon return to their world. Quite honestly, my favorite character and the only one I cared about surviving was Master the dog.

Monsters was primarily a singular monster for most of the movie with the kind of CGI you’d expect from this caliber of film. If you enjoy being confused watching confused characters wandering through a singularity solar space time quantum magnetic black hole multiverse monster prison disguised as a wooded forest, this might be something to check out. I told myself if the writers resisted using the most cliched ending for these cheap monster movies I’d give it a .5 bump. It did not receive a .5 ratings bump.

17 October 2024

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