Monsters of Man

...and very impressively so, that this was an amateur filmmakers first ever dabble with filmmaking! Sure this film had its flaws, but considering Mark Toia has never been a cinematographer, never written, produced, or directed anything in his life before, I say mad respect and serious props to you sir!

So to those wannabe critics who gave this film 1's and 2's, give your heads a shake and learn to respect the work of an amateur filmmaker trying to make his mark in the industry. They all have to start somewhere, right? And I have to point out, that I've seen much worse films put together by seasoned filmmakers. So for Toia to wear these many hats and pull this off, this film should not be rated anything less than a 6/10.

Now my main disappointment that could've so easily been avoided, was Toia's writing. Aside from some of the plot and technical issues (e.g. When you're caught between a rock and a hard place, always take the weapon!), the length of his screenplay's final cut runtime of 131 mins was absurdly long. There were far too many long, dragged out and unnecessary scenes. E.g. When kid's gangster dad dies, the ongoing crying, group hugs and whines was utterly and annoyingly ridiculous. And there were many of those scenes. So when I said "could've so easily been avoided", Toia either needed an experienced editor and/or seasoned writer to look over his script, and cut out at least 20-30 mins. His pacing was actually quite good, that a 90-100 min runtime could've made this film great, instead of just good.

Aside from Neal McDonough and Jose Rosete being the only recognizable and experienced actors, the remaining unknown and unexperienced cast performed impressively well. Sure, some where a little over the top and borderline annoying, but keep in mind they were being guided by an inexperienced director.

The film's location settings were beautiful. The score was actually not bad and fitting, especially considering almost every B film's score is usually unfitting, overbearingly loud and annoying. The S/VFX were on point... I'm mean those robots were "Chappie" quality viewing.

Toia is certainly an upcoming filmmaker to keep an eye out for. Thus with more positives against a few understandably amateur negative mistakes, Toia's Monsters of Man gets a very deserving 6/10 from me. I sure hope with his ending, a Part 2 will get made. To see my review and rating system, or more of my 1000+ reviews, click on my username.

After 10 minutes you know it is going to be a bad movie, it is impossible to connect to any of the actors, they all act like morons. After 20 minutes I set the player to 1½ times speed and still the pace was slow. The only good actors are the robots, the dialogs I think are written by a 14 year old put that together with the bad acting and amateur casting, this movie sucks. Honestly I was applauding every time someone died in the movie, could not happen fast enough.

It won't win any originality awards. But it's well acted, realistic FX and doesn't shy away from blowing a few kids away. Ha ha Far too sentimental in places and some of the pacing felt like it dragged. Couple of annoying characters needed 'ending' yet was left wanting. Overall a fun Predator/Terminator style scifi film with good FX and above average acting. Although some scenes needed cutting and were overly dramatic and trying to win and oscar or something. Ha ha I didnt really care enough to be moved by any of the characters so those scenes were wasted. Cut 15mins from it and be better.

Bottom line:

Not terrible, not wonderful.

Good:

• Effects (not saying much as most effects these days are believable)
• Best actor in the film was the little Cambodian kid. He had a couple of scenes which genuinely pulled at my heartstrings.

Bad:

• Whiny, strident, screeching, 2-dimensional characters played by actors who think that hyperventilating is the best way to convey fear, excitement, and nearly every other emotion.

• I didn't care if anyone of them died. In fact, I was rooting for the robot to clean house and just blow them away.

• Some of the "acting" felt really forced and try-hard, like a 9-year-old was trying to impress their parents with a dramatic reenactment of what they saw an amateur do on TV.

I've noticed this trend in recent movies - this forced kind of acting, even in huge budget movies like the most recent Star Wars installments. Take note of how many times the actors hyperventilate when they are afraid, excited or just trying to talk to someone. Forced and one-note.

If you want examples of fear expressed wonderfully, watch Ripley in Aliens when she first discovers the queen, or the scene when Tom Cruise pulls off his mask in the middle of a gigantic room full of menacing masked onlookers in Eyes Wide Shut. These are great examples of believable fear emoted without having a damned asthma attack.

I feel like writers and actors of today don't understand nuance or subtlety. It's all over-the-top popcorn variety schlock. Just fill the screen with screaming meat targets and that should be enough to make the audience to feel sorry for them when they die.

They think the way to invoke tension is by directing actors to shriek and shout at everything when things get a little tense. They don't know how to balance it out with some humor or downtime.

Millennial writers and actors could learn a lot from old school classics to learn how to better their craft and make characters relatable and even likeable.

Movie wasn't terrible, but this trend of mediocre acting doesn't help the its rating.

I watched this without really knowing much about it, three things drew me to it, robots, Neal McDonough and the length. Normally in my reckoning movies over 90 minutes tend to be OK. This one met this condition, but it was a bit too long and could have easily been 20-30 minutes shorter and lose none of the story line. The acting wasn't brillant, but the actors did a good job. The CGI was good and didn't make the movie look cheap. Parts of the movie were a bit repetitive and the storyline has been done to death, but if you have a few hours to kill you could do worse than watch this.

5.5/10 would be my honest rating, it would score higher if it was a bit shorter.