Monsters

The screenplay, camerawork, directing and visual effects are all done by a single creator, a feature-film first-timer no less, and with a budget of USD 800,000. Anyone who rates this film as below average should see something from the Asylum. Sharknado cost USD 200,000 more. Surprisingly, given how few actual monsters we see in the film, it can keep the audience’s curiosity going, as we never quite know what’s going to happen next. Which didn’t happen to me even once while watching the three-hour long Avatar, which cost 300 million dollars to make. All Monsters needs to achieve this feat is a few dozen “Infected Zone” signs, exotic locations and the skills of its director. The central, relatively unknown and all the more natural acting duo does not spoil or save anything, as the whole film is based on atmosphere and mystery. And it works. Warner Bros. know what they’re doing. The rushed ending is the only reason I am not giving the film a fourth star. (04/16/2014)

An alternative monster movie. This film will disappoint a lot of people, that’s for sure; it would be hard to find something less gratifying for the viewer. The problem is that in Monsters ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens, it’s only about two characters moving from point A to point B, which is not something most people will find appealing. The joke is, though, that it’s the very lack of action which makes Monsters something unique in science fiction; the low budget and the weak special effects (which are excellent considering the budget) are never a problem. This is actually some sort of “a travel report from an infected zone” where helicopters fly over your head at every moment, an extraterrestrial octopus goes through a garden, and nobody cares too much because it’s something normal. It doesn’t matter then that the protagonists don’t do anything, that they aren’t at the centre of the action, unlike those passer-bys in other monster flicks, who by chance (or “by chance”, depending on the skill of the screenwriter) find themselves in the middle of the action and save their loved ones, or their town, or the world; here there’s absolutely no action around them, and so they wander, looking around, and you look around with them. Add to this the excellent work with the music and the sound, and you get a very unusual travelogue – though that word is actually very pointless here. Forget about District 9, Cloverfield, The Mist and other movies that could be compared to this one at first sight, this is something completely different. (09/27/2010)

Taken with distance, what's most impressive about "Zakázaná zóna" is that the film looks much more expensive than it actually is, as if a large and influential studio stood behind it. Typically, it's the other way around. Gareth Edwards certainly presented himself well to the producers and demonstrated that he has what it takes for a big-budget production. On the other hand, the film looks somewhat conflicted. For many tastes, it's too intimate, shot in a documentary style where the average viewer would expect action, scares, simply at least a small dose of favorite genre clichés. Edwards, however, opts for unpretentiousness; danger is mostly hinted at somewhere behind the wall of trees in the tropical jungle, from vague movements in the shadows or water, and mysterious sounds that tantalize the imagination, hiding anything. On one hand, I was grateful that it avoided the traditional genre baggage that drowned so many other titles; on the other hand, it could have been conceived better. One hundred-meter octopuses may look impressive, but with such an invasion, humans would deal with them just fine. We have arsenals of weapons that we don't know what to do with, and the poor easily identifiable octopuses would get such a beating that animal rights activists would have nothing to protect. The real danger of contaminating the Earth's atmosphere would come more from microorganisms that could spread uncontrollably. In the movie, I didn't understand the growing dominance of the extraterrestrial invaders, and I certainly didn't understand how the oversized octopuses managed with gravity. No wonder the largest planetary organisms live in the ocean. So the octopuses probably sweet-talked or bribed gravity somehow. It would also be worth considering why the well-off dad didn't arrange air transport for his daughter, and I also thought that... Well, it could go on for a long time. As a road movie through a sick world where functioning institutions and certainties have collapsed, it wasn't bad, so in the end, I'll rate "Zakázaná zóna" at 60% overall impression. (03/20/2015)

A great and unconventional piece about monsters (almost) without any monsters. Edwards can squeeze the atmosphere out of the unseen, like Abrams or Spielberg, mainly through the use of sound, camera work, and lighting. Goosebumps and suspense are what this film is about, not aliens, regardless of the well-executed (for the money!) special effects. (06/29/2011)

An excellent film from a believably elaborate world in which part of Mexico was inhabited by cephalopods from space. We won't see many of them, but the better scenes are with them, because from start to finish we are in one ship with sympathetically ordinary characters, not any soldiers, scientists or superheros. Moreover, Gareth Edwards obviously likes Steven Spielberg and understands his work, and so he can afford, for example, in an automobile attack scene, to almost quote Jurassic Park without it being ridiculous or conceited - on the contrary, it's great, and I can already understand why he got the offer to direct Godzilla and why it is the way it is. (07/23/2017)