User reviews

...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.

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.

Every single character in this movie was so annoying and unrelatable that I was actually rooting for the killer robots.

If you are a Fan of Robots, AI, and well done CGI ( as i am ) - give this a Try.

Short Version: CGI: 9 out of 10 Rest: 5 out of 10

A Little More: A Group of advanced Robots is inserted into a South East Asian Country as a Field Test. Observed by the Manufacturer and the Government aswell as supported by a local Team of Programmers things quickly get out of Hand.

Interesting Take on Weaponized Robots, Artificial Intelligence, 'Evil' Government and Defense Contractors and finally even a little Philosophy on what it means to be 'Man or Machine'.

Shout Out to Boston Dynamics !

Normally this is the kind of movies that have my attention. These kind of sci-fi stories I find most entertaining for most of the time but in this case it turned out to be a disappointment. The "monsters" or robots in this case were well made but that's about it. The story is very cheesy, almost vomit bucket cheesy, and for sure way too long to keep your attention until the end. The acting was just average, certainly not good enough to be remembered. I wish I liked this movie more but the truth is I was happy to see the end credits appear.

Actually not too bad for an action movie. Sure, you'll have to suspend your disbelief a few times, and live with quite a lot of cringe ("I couldn't save them!" style), but other than that... Premise is fresh - autonomous weapons on the battlefield. Here we have a pack of killer robots sent to Cambodian jungle for a navigation-turned-more test. Robots fortunately (for the movie) encounter some resistance, and it is decided that they have to eliminate all witnesses. Rampage starts. Some very good FX, robots move properly unnaturally (or - "naturally" for a robot), they're actually quite scary, you know you would never want to meet them in combat. Human cast isn't so good, unfortunately. Overall, a nice break from the whole pandemic.

Started watching this and I was surprised by it. Only knew one well know actor that stared in it. Boy was I surprised.

Sound was good, filming was good. The CGI was amazing. Script was good. Loved the area where it was filmed.

You can pick a part any movie. But what I really want to convey with this review, give the movie a chance. It's a well done movie that entertains.

This movie is the best example of depicting, how humans can become the reason of polluting the Artificial Intelligence due to their evil and filthy motives. Humanity needs to know that when A. I. will become aware of them, there will be no decision left for them except erasing this virus type race. Computer and its Intelligence is the soul of our today's life, if we see critically, so be warned of indulging them into your evil and negative sides!!

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.

This movie had a lot going for it bar some poor script. The guy barking orders at the computer nerds should have his acting licence revoked. Cat and mouse for 2+ hours, is way too long, not a lot else happens. The robots are good.

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.

Least likeable cast ever. Robots were easier to empathize with than the shrill whiny American kids.

I went into this movie not having even seen a trailer and honestly with the current situation new releases are few and far between I have been watching movies recently that I never would have under normal circumstances.

Although fairly simplistic in it's plot, Monsters of Man was very good for what it intended to be with a good story, good practical effects, those robots looked good, and fairly good acting. A good action movie with shocking violence, including against women and children, which is almost unheard of, and makes those scenes a bit difficult to watch.

I didn't recognize any of the actors except for Neal McDonough, but I can't say that any of the actors did a bad job. My only complaint is that there is one scene where you can't tell the robots apart, I won't spoil anything, but not being able to tell them apart takes away from that scene.

Mark Toia had no credits for anything before this, but kudos, I was presently surprised, though it seems he is somewhat a narcissist, placing his name in the credits as Executive Producer twice and as Producer all before crediting the actors, so you basically see his name 5 or so times before the acting credits, all in the opening credits.

Recommended

Was probably 20 minutes too long...apart from that, I really enjoyed it.

Very realistic animation on the robots.

Simple but effective plot.

Bad guys are uncaringly evil, believable.

What you get when you mix "Chappie" "Short Circuit" "I, Robot" with utter lack of ideas? Over two hours boring, predictable, complete waste of time.called "Monsters of Man".

Nice scenery of Cambodia and good animation does not save poor acting and pulp script.

I read a couple of weeks ago that this unknown director made I sci-fi movie on a shoe string budget. Mark Toia wrote/produced/directed the photography and the movie and came up with a hidden gem of a film.

The cgi was spot on and the very deliberate movements of the robots I thought just added to the menace of the killing machines.

As for using a mostly unknown cast was inspired!!!

I can't believe this movie got rated so low...I really can't.

Me personally thought it was a very very good effort for a first movie and I will be lookin out for the guy in the future.

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.

Not a terrible movie, just not very original, and no single plot thread really stood out as the overarching story. A little bit existential AI crisis, a little bit shadow government baddies, a little bit innocent bystanders trying to survive. I would definitely give another star if the story were simply tightened up.

The acting is a little lackluster, sometimes kind of hammy, but it wasn't terrible.

Cambodia was beautiful, but the static bad guys on the phone with each other in separate rooms was boring.

Even with action sequences, this movie took forever. I was a little bored at times.

But it's not bad. Just has nothing new to add. (Granted, I watch and read a lot, so I've got a large base to draw from.) It's okay, yet I can't say it's actually worth watching.

... despite a bunch of really dumab and annoying characters that deserved their demise.

It looks and sounds better than your average no-name sci-fi flick.

With tighter editing this could have been a very good 80-90minutes but over 2 hours it is far too long.