Monsters of Man

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.

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.

...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.

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.