What happens when you mix one part Zombieland with one part I am Legend add a pinch of Stand by Me and bake it in a John Hughes oven? You get Love and Monsters and it’s pretty delightful.
Synopsis
The Human race has to launch a series of nuclear bombs into space to destroy an asteroid hurtling towards earth. The asteroid is destroyed but the nuclear fallout mutates any cold blooded creates into horrific Lovecraftian monsters. These monsters wipe out 95% of the world’s population, the survivors are forced underground living in colonies scrounging for whatever food and supplies they can get their hands on. Joel, played by Dylan O’Brien, is a bumbling 24 year old survivor who freezes up at any sign of danger. He makes contact with his girlfriend from before the apocalypse, Aimee, played by Jessica Henwick, who is living in her own colony just 85 miles away. Despite his debilitating fear, Joel decides to venture out of his bunker and out to the surface on a quest for true love.
Dylan O’Brien: the Strong weak male lead
Dylan O’Brien stars as Joel and he does a really good job playing the everyman character. This character isn’t unique, it’s very similar to Jesse Eisenberg’s character in Zombieland and I also think it gets a lot of inspiration from Yorick from Brian K. Vaughn’s comic book Y:The Last Man. It’s the weak guy that doesn’t know how to fight but learns from the people around him and gains competency as the story goes on. What O’Brien brings to the character is a level of sincerity, he is self deprecating and makes quips but he isn’t sarcastic or mean spirited. Joel is ultimately a hopeful character and that’s important in order to have a contrast with all the death and destruction that this post apocalyptic world provides.
High Class World Building
The world building in this movie is terrific, the underground bunkers truly feel lived in. There was a high attention to detail in the set design. The design of the Mav1s robots do so much in informing the audience about what this near future world was before the apocalypse happened. The outside world is overgrown and resembles the world of the Last Of Us series. This movie does this great thing where an establishing shot will have little details in the extreme foreground or way in the background. It might be two small monsters fighting each other, or a nest, or something moving in the bushes, these little details make the outside world seem teaming with life and ultimately a lot more dangerous.
The monster design in this film is really well done. These monsters are meant to be mutated animals so a part of the fun of each monster design is seeing how ordinary creatures like snails, worms and jelly fish are turned into these huge grotesque beasts. The scenes shot in broad daylight have some wonky monster CGI but the action is always really well staged so it covers up some CGI blemishes. There is a scene towards the start of the movie where a monster is only partially shown and I think they used practical effects for this monster and it worked really well. The final monster showdown also looked great and again I think that’s because they were using a mix of CGI with some practical effects possibly stop motion animation.
No Added Fat
This script is lean. This story is not all that original, guy travels across a post apocalyptic wasteland to reconnect with the love of his life, pretty basic stuff. What the screenwriter does is cut out every ounce of fat from this story, seriously this screenplay has less fat than Stallone in Rocky 4. Every single line of dialogue is either setting something up or paying something off. This movie is 109 minutes long and manages to fit in it so much story because the writing is so efficient.
I also have to give credit to the director Michael Matthews, this is only his second feature length movie and he does such a fantastic job at setting up the visual style of this world from the jump. Also, his action sequences are extremely entertaining, they are high stakes and most importantly everything is clear and easy to follow. There is nothing worse than an action sequence so shaky it makes your stomach churn.
Memorable Supporting Cast
The supporting cast in this movie is really solid. A special shoutout to Boy the dog, the movie gets a couple of bomus points for having a good dog performance in there. Michael Roocker plays a survivor living on the surface but he’s basically just playing Michael Rooker but I like Michael Rooker so I’m not complaining. He was paired with this little girl played by newcomer Ariana Greenblatt, she had surprisingly good comic timing and made good use of her limited role. Jessica Henwick plays Aimee and she was as great as always. Aimee is a character that could have easily just been Joel’s prize for making it to the end of his journey but the movie gives her actual character development which was nice to see. Henwick is instantaneously likeable and she is a badass in the action sequences. I put Henwick and O’Brien in the same category of young actors who I think are fabulous and extremely talented yet I can’t quite understand why they don’t have better careers.
Negatives
You can probably tell that I really enjoyed this movie but that doesn’t mean it’s without flaws. Like I said before there is some wonky CGI throughout the film, it doesn’t ruin the experience but it’s definitely noticeable. There are a few moments where something triumphant happens and the music swells in a really obvious way, this is one of my biggest pet peeves in movies. If I think the music is telling me how to feel then that’s a bad thing. This movie is not cynical it ends on a very hopeful message, I personally thought that the messaging was earned and fit the overall tone of the film but to some it may come off as heavy handed or cheesy. A minor issue I had was with the movie’s title. I just don’t think Love and Monsters is a really good title is sounds like a IOS game. Joel is constantly writing in his journal and at the end of the film he calls it the Monster Apocalypse Survival Guide, that’s a way better title for the movie than the one they came up with.
Final Thoughts
This movie is a fun action adventure romp that delivers on the scares, the comedy, and even tosses in a little bit of heart. The monster design keeps you engaged and the acting is solid from everyone involved. This movie isn’t going to challenge you in any heady intellectual ways but it will entertain you and that’s it’s exact purpose. I give Love and Monsters a strong 3.5 out of 5 stars. I am really hoping that this film does well enough to warrant a sequel I think there is enough depth to this universe to explore it further.
