Flying Monkeys

The acting was terrible, the graphics awful. Really bad film. Wish I'd not wasted my time.

For an original SyFy Channel movie, then "Flying Monkeys" wasn't as bad as it could have been. Let's face it, SyFy Channel do spew out a fair share of questionable movies in a steady pace. But every now and then they do manage to deliver something that isn't as campy, cheesy or unwatchable as the rest of their movies. "Flying Monkeys" wasn't one of their greatest movies, true, but it was enjoyable even though it was cheesy.

The story in "Flying Monkeys" is about Joan (played by Maika Monroe) who graduates from high school. Although her dad James (played by Vincent Ventresca) promised to attend, he arrived late. And to make amends for his late-comings, then he buys his daughter an exotic pet monkey, which she names Skippy. It turns out that the cute monkey turns into a demonic winged killer monkey at night and wrecks havoc on the town. A couple of Asian hunters are chasing after the monkey to kill it before it can further its evil. And the trick is, that the monkey can only be killed by weapons that were blessed in old times. If killed by conventional means, the monkey parts and becomes two.

Storywise, then "Flying Monkeys" is as standard as these type of movies come. But still, it was enjoyable, because there was a good pace to the story, and there was just something profound cheesy to the movie which made it more fun to watch.

The acting was quite good, and that helped lift up the enjoyment of the movie. Even the monkey that played Skippy was doing a convincing job.

I nearly toppled over when they showed a scene that was supposed to be from Hong Kong. That was from mainland China somewhere, and not Hong Kong. I lived there for four years and am familiar with the scenery, the street signs, cabs etc., and that was not Hong Kong. But hey, at least they had the continent right. It was an effort, but a goofy mistake to make.

As for the CGI effects; well, they were there and they served their purpose. However, don't expect to be dazzled by multi-million dollar Hollywood CGi effects, because that is not the case.

"Flying Monkeys" is a fun movie to watch, it is predictable and generic, yes, but then again, so are many movies in the killer animal genre - if there is such a genre.

4 out of 10 stars from me. Fun, campy, predictable but still enjoyable.

I have seen worse movies but I'm hard pressed to name them, Netflix truly entered Amazon level mince films with this bottom of the barrel crapfest.

I have seen actual monkeys throwing faeces that was better than this, it's not funny just sad, don't watch it.

Leaving a serious review for this film is what a stupid person would do. It's cheese. It's fun. But you gotta be into that sort of thing. If your not just don't watch or review it.

I'll be honest in saying that I was expecting to hate Flying Monkeys, as with a few exceptions SyFy's movies are terrible. Flying Monkeys is not a great movie, far from it in my view, but you can do with far worse. Admittedly, the dialogue flows poorly and reeks of cheese, the gore is very artificial-looking and trivialises the attacks rather than adding to them and the demon hunters and their subplot felt shoehorned in and like it was just padding out the running time. There also for me seemed to be too much emphasis on anti-gun control, I liked that there was a commentary but at the end of the day it felt overstated. However, while nothing particularly is top-drawer in Flying Monkeys there were assets that did seem better done here than in other SyFy movies.

The movie is shot and edited reasonably competently, and while the CGI effects are not going to win any awards and look a little goofy they are proportioned quite well and at least they don't look like they only took five-ten minutes to make. The attacks are quite nail-biting and inventive, more so than usual actually, and the finale is exciting. The father-daughter relationship is something we have seen many times, but was quite touching here. The story of course is weird with the feel of two or more stories rolled into one, also ones that together don't particularly mesh well so the movie did feel muddled at times, but it is not too predictable and it didn't ever bore me. The music and sound effects fit with the atmosphere quite nicely and don't overbear the drama.

We've seen these type of characters before, but while not all were necessary they weren't annoying. Even Wang had his moments. And who cannot love Skippy, he is very cute though he is equally convincing as a demonic monkey. The direction shows a director with more experience in this genre and one who knows how to keep things moving without it getting too overly-serious or overly-comical. The acting is better than average, Maika Monroe and Vincent Ventresca especially were quite good. Overall, weird but quite entertaining. A great movie it isn't, but I- and coming from someone who dislikes most of SyFy's output intensely - cannot bring myself to hate it. 6/10 Bethany Cox