Monsters of Man

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.

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 !

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.

...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.