Monsters (Review)
Sunday, 10th April 2011, 14:52

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Within about a two week period in December 2010, I saw two alien invasion films: Monsters and Skyline. Although ostensibly two films with the same premise – aliens have arrived on planet Earth and the film follows a small group dealing with the consequences – they really couldn't be more different. Skyline is set, Cloverfield-style, before and during the first few hours of invasion whereas Monsters has a completely different timeline as the aliens aren't here as invaders, but residents, as they have been on Earth for six months and live in a quarantined zone in Mexico.

Gareth Edwards’ film follows two very different people, connected by a wealthy industrialist in the United States. Andrew, a young photojournalist who is in Mexico to cover the local population and their attitudes towards the newly established 'Infected Zone', which has walled off half the country, is phoned by his employer and asked to escort his daughter, Samantha, back to the United States.

Both Andrew and Samantha are in an extremely difficult juncture in their lives as Andrew is desperate to get back to the US and to get to his estranged six-year-old son's impending birthday party whilst Samantha is reconsidering her position in life, particularly her impending marriage. Not only does Andrew want to hurry back to the US, but he really doesn't want to 'baby sit' a wealthy socialite and is pretty sick of his job in which he has to make the situation worse than it really is by photographing the destruction and people wearing gas masks rather than those happily going about their daily lives, not really caring about the 'guests' many miles away.

As Robert Burns wrote about mice, men and best laid plans, this journey north does not go as planned as the train journey north has to be cancelled because the monsters have destroyed part of the railway, indicating that their migratory season has begun and that the window to enter the US will close in a few days time. The only way of getting Samantha back before the US becomes completely shut off is to get her on the last ferry and they pay $5000 for a ticket. When it becomes clear that Andrew's feelings for Samantha are not reciprocated, he gets drunk and picks up a local girl and, compounding matters, both his and Samantha's passports are stolen so the only way to travel north is to pay the same man $10,000 for an organised and extremely illegal journey through the 'infected zone'.

From comments I've read on various sites around the Internet, some people were disappointed by the film because they expected many huge extraterrestrials because of the title and so weren't expecting the film to be a road movie with only two credited characters. I found this to be the most interesting and revelatory aspects of the film as, though I had studiously avoided all trailers and reviews, I somehow wasn't expecting a big budget movie with lots of aliens, gunfire and explosions. It was only after I saw Monsters that I learned how little it cost, how (in)experienced the two actors are and the extent to which the production of the film was basically a one man show with Gareth Edwards as the writer, director, cinematographer, production design and the man responsible for all the CGI.

There is also an important aspect to the narrative which I only caught on the second viewing in which the opening sequence, shot in night vision, follows some soldiers in the middle of a huge attack by the monsters, calling in an airstrike whilst a civilian calls for help as he calls his female companion out of the way. There are numerous films such as Citizen Kane, Fight Club and Pan's Labyrinth that begin at the end before backtracking and showing you events from the very beginning, and Monsters is the latest to use this narrative structure.

As far as the acting goes, I heard that Gareth Edwards had cast Scoot McNairy as Andrew but was having real difficulty in finding someone suitable to play Samantha. As the story goes, McNairy offered to phone his girlfriend, a model and aspiring actress, to come and audition and see whether her acting was up to scratch. Fortunately, Edwards was completely sold and cast Whitney Able almost immediately so the two protagonists are played by a real-life couple whose characters don't really like each other at first, but grow closer as events progress. I was remarkably impressed by both actors and how completely plausible they were as, at the time, I didn't know about their off-screen relationship. I can think of several examples where real-life couples have played on-screen couples but not many (if any) where a couple has had to play people who really don't get on and are supposed to be, at best, distant.

The idea of visitors from another planet sharing our world with us has been explored before, such as in Alien Nation and District 9, but this doesn't really show, or tell you, anything about the aliens as they are just 'there' and had been on Earth for so long that they aren't really considered a big deal, just something that needs to be contained. As such, the film follows Andrew and Samantha on their unusual road trip without focusing on the extra terrestrial life forms, who only appear in the background or on television until the very end of the film. This works extremely well as Monsters is completely character based with the drama coming from the interaction between Andrew and Samantha rather than the humans and the aliens. This isn't to say that they don't appear at all and there are several occasions when an alien makes its presence felt by disrupting the journey north, killing people, wreaking destruction or generally just being a nuisance!

Although Monsters didn't make my list of the top 10 best films from last year, it came extremely close and was probably one of the most surprising films I saw in 2010 in terms of going in with no expectations and leaving the cinema realising I'd seen something extremely special.

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