Monsters of War

The CGI was really good, but the acting came out of a Cracker Jack Box. The facial expression you can tell the lead actress was trying too hard with extra long eyelashes. The kids had no emotion. I want my time back.

Monsters of War is producer Scott Jeffrey's third attempt at a group of unappealing, unattractive people trapped in a house stalked by dinosaurs/monsters horror film. I'm pretty sure this is the same hotel as in Dinosaur Hotel. The other film Hatched was in a pretty country house. The star here is the same actress from Dinosaur Hotel and she has the same two annoying kids as in that movie. They must be her real children as they can't act. None of the adults in this should really be in the acting profession either, it features some other faces from Dinosaur Hotel. The Eastern European nun is especially bad at acting plus her character is nasty- homely, mean, condescending and delusion. You'll be longing for her death and the death of every other character here.

Apparently there's a war going on involving monsters though there's no big battles or chaos in the cities. The attacks by the "Monsters of War" are pretty sparse. I think we get more screen time of a super annoying asthma attack. We also get a long crying scene and a look for the lost child part which is pointless as it doesn't end in finding the child's half-eaten remains. All of this is to add unnecessary drama to go along with the endless dialogue inside the hotel. How about some drama of the people being relentlessly assaulted by the "Monsters of War?" Instead our ears are assaulted with endless boring dialogue that is hard to make out due to the accents.

The lone redeeming thing about Monsters of War is the monsters themselves. Sure the CG isn't great but it's not really that bad. There's a decent variety here- two T-Rex's, a snake like monster, a dragon and another neat insectoid/reptoid type creature. There's a mention of a raptor that never appears. The monster attacks are somewhat bloody. At one point the director thinks he's clever doing one of those cliché circle around a group of people while they talk sequences. The only problem is you can hear the cameraman's footsteps during the entire sequence. Genius! There was also some brief but nice scenery of the English countryside. I've seen some fun films produced by Scott Jeffrey like Cupid and Don't Speak, Monsters of War is not one of them.

Amateur YouTube can act better than the people in this. The little girl was the worst. The mom had a entire make-up store on her face. These people do any and everything to became victims. They had 3 months of food. They could've covered the windows and the monsters would've never even thought of them. I hate when people in these movies have life threatening asthma and are always never near their medicine.

I think that says it all.

You'll understand if you watch this movie.

It's a monster movie. Bunch of weird monsters.

The opening family is really weird. All through the movie, you'll be thinking that they were really robots, or something to explain their weirdness and stiffness.

But it never happens.

In its defense, I'll say that it certainly looks like some very important information was CUT. Maybe more was filmed, maybe more was scheduled to be filmed. It wouldn't take much to add for some coherent story line or character line.

Mostly, the military angle looked like something was cut. The two surviving soldiers who join the isolated group have weapons that never work. That is possibly what is missing from the story. Were they given decrepit weapons on purpose by humans, or was there a supernatural reason? Nothing is indicated either way. Was there a scene cut from the movie to explain this? The woman playing the military leader gets top billing, even though the family is center stage, so I'm inclined to believe there was initially more to the script.

Until that is added on to the movie, I have to grade it on its merits as is. So, here goes:

We learn many lessons. The people in the military are given weapons that don't function. And eventually the ones who survive learn to just toss those weapons away.

We learn that if a beast is about to eat you, to stand and talk and don't run away or drive away for a good 15 seconds. This is to ensure that the slower beasts don't get their meal, and you get to feed faster beasts who will breed faster beasts.

Many such lessons.

The motivations for the characters? Well, some are motivated, and some are just kind of "lets just have this character do this thing here". Notably a stereotypical religious nut and the family from the beginning.

I'll be lax on the rating, because I do believe the panic in panic situations. That's the only thing going for this movie. People not acting calm and cool when huge dangerous beasts are maiming and tearing their bodies apart.

But it total?

I think it can all be summed up with:

Huh?

The story of this movie had potential. The acting, therefore, is ridiculously bad. The children who are cast have null charisma and what the children lack in acting talent the rest compensates for with terrible overacting. The local amateur drama society employs more credible actors. The monsters in this movie are quite imaginative, but the execution is downright bad. The CGI looks ridiculously cheap. I can't believe anyone put the time and money into making this. Sometimes there are those movies that are so bad it's still funny to watch but this just hurts your eyes. Avoid this movie at all costs. Go do something fun with your time. Go scrub a toilet, iron the laundry, or literate your stamp collection. These are 81 minutes of your life you will never get back.