3 out of 5

Director: Gareth Edwards

Monsters is an interesting attempt at blending a two, generally discordant, types of movies into one. As can be assumed by my using “generally,” it does this very well, mixing a creepy creature thriller with romance. Unfortunately, beyond this truly gently and subtly mixed blend, there’s not much meat to the movie, or to the characters, or to the scenes. A great shaky-cam Cloverfield-esque intro sets the stage for the film by showing some army types getting ambushed by a huge monster. The intro is so effective that you’re sort of glad it segues out of this into regular movie style, because anything beyond the snippet would’ve been trying too hard. Instead you get some nicely dangled bits of character and plot in Andrew, a photographer, having to escort his bosses daughter, Samantha, through some dangerous territory back to good ol’ Americaland. And in the world of Monsters, “dangerous territory” is called as such because its infested with aliens. What works very well are these characters. Their relationship and its evolution is played successfully, both being realistically emotive / unemotive at the right times as well as looking cute enough – not movie star cute, more indie cute – to warrant our identification with them. The problem is that, although you like these people, you don’t really care too much about them, and it becomes apparent that your brief glimpses of action and creature are going to be all you get… meaning that the attempts at thrills are bound to disappoint. While not empty of subtext, “Creatures” – a well shot, well acted, and smartly scripted (if not fully executed) blend of genres – is ultimately forgettable, but worth a watch if you go into it without expectation.