Love and Monsters, 2021.
Directed by Michael Matthews.
Starring Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, Dan Ewing, Michael Rooker, and Ariana Greenblatt.
SYNOPSIS:
In a monster-infested world, Joel (Dylan O’Brien) learns his girlfriend is just 80 miles away. To make the dangerous journey, Joel discovers his inner hero to be with the girl of his dreams.
Had the landscape in Michael Matthews terrific creature-feature not been closely mirrored by real world events, Love and Monsters could very well have been one of those sleeper blockbusters you opt to see when all of the multiplex screens are chock full of IP of a summer evening. As it is, this VHS-rental throwback, the kind of flick you’d watch on repeat as a kid before returning it to the store, finds a home on Netflix, where you should seek it out straight away, because it’s a wonderfully inventive adventure built on a foundation of heart, optimism, and unbridled fun.
It’s your simple tale of boy-meets-girl, an asteroid hits, monsters take over the world, boy-loses-girl, boy faces his fears in order to journey across a perilous landscape to be reunited with girl. Peppered throughout that timeline are a series of events that range from thrilling to genuinely moving, all anchored by a charming lead performance from Dylan O’Brien.
Largely acting alongside both real and imaginary beasts, O’Brien brings just about the right amount of wit and vulnerability to Joel that you’re rooting for him from the moment he snarks his way through the opening expository voiceover. It’s testament to his immediate likeability as a screen presence that you don’t need to see too much of his pre-apocalypse life in order to care about the relationship which drives the film, even though those moments dropped in to fill in the narrative blanks are very effective.
Of the human characters he meets along the way, Michael Rooker is at his grizzled best as a world-weary traveler, with both he and his pint-sized companion Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt) providing some much-needed chemistry for O’Brien bounce off in-between the monster set-pieces.
Love and Monsters budget clearly isn’t up there with the biggest of blockbusters, but it creates its world and the creatures which inhabit it with a real old-school joy. There’s a giant cockroach which has a William Castle style charm, a sticky tongued toad, and possibly best of all, a mutated crab straight from the Ray Harryhausen scrap-book.
However, the most resonant confrontation comes from when Joel meets an android with a limited power-source remaining before it expires. It’s a scene which unintentionally taps into so many themes of the past year; loneliness, disconnection, and grief. Even without the backdrop of a global pandemic the pathos would hit hard, but it’s a delightful melancholy pit-stop amongst the wisecracks and gunge.
Dismiss Love and Monsters as a YA folly at your peril, because you’ll be missing out on an end-of-the-world adventure that’s as emotionally rewarding as it is monstrous fun.
Love and Monsters is streaming on Netflix UK from the 14th April, 2021.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★ ★
Matt Rodgers – Follow me on Twitter @mainstreammatt
