You can't beat a decent bit of world building in movies. If it's done right it can make even the silliest story feel believable. In Love And Monsters we get our hero wandering through a landscape littered with the detritus of a destroyed civilisation in the wake of a war between man and monster. Nature has taken back over, wind turbines have been turned into mossy towers, crashed fighter jets peak out of the ground, grotesque gigantic carcasses dot the countryside. Everything useful has been scavenged, cars, buildings are empty and what remains of humanity has retreated underground to bunkers, sewers, eking out an existence but not a life. Within minutes, Love And Monsters deftly sketches out the world of the future, making what comes next a lot easier to swallow.
Agatha 616, a life ending asteroid, is heading towards earth and the superpowers join hands to take it out. The world's combined nuclear arsenal is launched and the space rock is destroyed successfully but all that combined radiation rains back down transforming the planet's fauna into massive, vicious terrors that wipe out 99% of the world's population in mere weeks. The survivors hide out underground for years and their numbers are slowly dwindling. One of them, Joel Dawson (Dylan O'Brien, a great lead) has just discovered his girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick), is still alive in another survivor colony near the Californian coastline. He wants to get to her but surviving on the surface is going to be a nightmare.
Love And Monsters was supposed to get a cinema release earlier this year but bastard covid19 rocked up and ruined everyone's plans. Instead it's gotten a belated online release meaning it's not going to do a fraction of the business it deserves and that's a pity because it's a charmer of a film. It's got it all. Love! and Monsters! A perfect pairing really. It's a very enjoyable watch, surprising considering how dark it sounds but light direction from Michael Matthews and a winning lead in Dylan O'Brien will have you loving it. It's a film that takes it's title seriously and one that wastes no time dishing out the goods, by the time the opening credits are done we have the backstory and within minutes we have the motivation and we're off.
In his colony Joel isn't taken seriously, while the others are in monster killing mode, he's milking cows and making minestrone soup and now he's on a mission of his own. Watching him turning from a mouse into a lion over the course of the story is a joy and telegraphed plot points that would annoy normally, here become sources of giddy anticipation. Michael Rooker (who usually plays scary characters is sound here. I'd have liked to have seen a lot more of him tbh) plays Clyde, a man he meets on the way who teaches him how to survive on the surface, and everything he learns plays off in surprising ways with one lesson especially adding a nice sense of tenderness to the films climax. Tenderness, not something you'd normally expect to see in a monster movie but there's a solid streak of it throughout Love And Monsters. A quiet chat with a robot who allows a glimpse into the past, a new friendship with an old favourite, a night full of sky jellies (!) soundtracked by a classic song, a much appreciated hug in a world devoid of them. Little touches that give this film a beating heart........and people to worry about.
Then there's the monsters. The ones here are recognisable but horribly twisted like house sized toads with a taste for human flesh, killer worms, gigantic snails and crabs. They're all CGI creations as is par for the course these days but there's a gooey tangibility to them that will make you shudder. They aren't flat out terrifying now, more Jurassic Park scary meaning you'll have fun with this instead of hiding behind your hands. It's one to enjoy with the family, there's no blood or guts, very little swearing and a couple of real life lessons to be learned. It's apocalyptic overtones might sound like hard work in 2020 but there's a great sense of optimism on display here, it never wallows in the darkness of it's story and the final words in the film are ones of hope. We all appreciate that these days.
Love And Monsters is streaming online now. I really liked it.
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