WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Love and Monsters, now available on digital and premium video on demand.
Love and Monsters never hid the fact it was going to be a cheesy post-apocalyptic adventure as Joel (Dylan O'Brien) tried to make his way back to his beloved Aimee (Jessica Henwick) after being apart for seven years.
He believes she's his soulmate and is willing to make the dangerous trek across an America filled with deadly creatures to get to her. However, as warm and romantic as this aspect of the film is, it's the wrong part to focus on as the movie should have dealt a lot more with the monsters.
Had we not known Aimee's position, the romantic arc would have worked better. But from their first radio exchange, we can tell she's moved on. She doesn't sound excited or express affection by saying "I love you," so we know she's not into Joel anymore after they got separated in California. To make it worse, by revealing her position so early on, it takes away from the mystique and intrigue of their relationship. Had this been kept secret, we'd have basked in his hope, only to be shocked when he got to her, which would have felt real and relatable as love isn't ideal -- it's fluid, evolving and, at times, a one-way street.
By boring us with what's obviously an unrequited love, Love and Monsters wastes its potential with beasts that are earthly and hungry, as opposed to sinister Kaiju or aliens invading. These creatures have such cool designs and it feels like what would happen if everyday monsters rise up. From slugs and snails to frogs and centipedes, they're all intimidating and not too overdone. There's even room for the franchise to spruce them up as they mutated when Earth blew up a meteor and the radiated pieces fell to the planet's surface and seas. And what's most interesting is they're sympathetic because they're fighting for survival. They're not hunting per se, they're defending their territories.
Had the film shown them crawling up the food chain through more aggressive predators such as sharks, snakes, wolves or more feral creatures, that would have added a lot more ferocity and intensity, and maybe even horror. Case in point, when Joel has to blow the "Sand-Goobler" up with a grenade, it's a badass action scene, or when he fights a giant crab with a trident a la Aquaman. These scenes are the strength of the movie as everything else is bland and predictable, feeling like network TV daytime drama.
Instead, these scenes are way too short or chucked in just to label this the 'monsterpocalypse,' when the beasts could have been given more screen-time without compromising the humanity of the film. Ultimately, there's simply not enough of these adrenaline-filled moments to balance the emo Joel and all his angst, which sucks as this could have created Paramount's MonsterVerse.
Directed by Michael Matthews and written by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, Love and Monsters stars Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, Michael Rooker and Ariana Greenblatt. The movie is currently available on digital and premium video on demand.