Monkey Love

How can anyone say this film is good? It's not even film. It's video. And it sucked. The acting. Directing. Lighting. Everything. No wonder it doesn't have distribution. Everyone...please don't listen to the hype-machine written here, because it's most likely written by crew members from the film. They are lies. This movie screams of student film! DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!

Monkey Love is a well crafted story about a young girl coming to grips with life as an adult. Actually, it's a funny, interesting, even quirky story about compelling people and their romances. The writing and directing are first rate, and performances by Amy Stewart, Jeremy Renner and Seamus Dever reveal new talent bound for bigger things. What a great way to enjoy a night at the movies...making Monkey Love. Even the music is not the usual collection of the first 8 bars of current pop hits. Enjoy.

I could not bring myself to sit through the entire 135 minutes. My wife and I were both bored soon after the film started. The acting was over dramatic and unrealistic. Perhaps the fight scene was supposed to be funny as well as the behavior of Amy's parents. The Amy's performance was satisfactory but her two friends over reacted in many of the scenes which made it unbelievable.

Where other films were shot on a dolly this film was hand held. DVD sound quality was acceptable and even. The cinematography was clear and sharp. Continuity was acceptable. It reminds me of the student films created in a 8mm cinematography class I took 30 years ago. The story could have been told in 30 minutes.

This movie is so bad I can hardly contain myself. I feel like less of a person for watching the whole thing.

The performances appeared atrociously bad because of the student-project feel that oozes from the inexplicable, horrible choice of shooting to VIDEO(!!!!) instead of film, and more so because of the follow-up stinky editing. Sudden bursts of emotion seemed totally out of place. The story flow was totally disjointed. I could not care about the characters at all. I hated them for being in such a bad movie. The movie didn't know if it was quirky or funny or serious or romantic. The ending was jaw-droppingly shallow.

The car kidnap/ fight scene was comically bad. I mean, downright funny bad. I watched the scene again to see if I had just seen what I thought I did. It was even worse the second time around.

I could go on and on. This movie stinks. Bad.

Some serious questions: How do movies like this get made? It's like seeing a misused apostrophe on a neon sign. How can anybody be involved in something like this and not know how awful it is going to turn out?

Unbelievable.

This film was... Different. The way it was shot was boring and even annoying. The lines were cliché, or even one step above of that, because it was truly awful. I didn't get how her relationship with her parents pertained to the story. But I love love love Jeremy Renner and Seamus Dever... So I was completely willing to overlook this because it was their early works and they are both onto bigger and better things. Not decent, not OK, but it was there, so I watched it. Probably, most defiantly, won't watch it again. There are better Jeremy Renner films that he did before his "big break", like Dahmer or Neo Ned. And watch Seamus on Castle. Much better options than this. So I give this four stars, two stars for Jeremy, and two more for Seamus.