It looks like they made another Zombieland Movie! or at least that’s definitely what they were going for. Only this time it’s Monsters instead of Zombies. And there’s a dog. Which makes it forgivable I guess. Love and Monsters is the latest in a long line of “clueless dork survives the apocalypse” movies, and well it’s pretty fun.
The latest in the onslaught of Netflix movies, the quality of which is all over the place ‘Love and Monsters’ is above average for sure. A solid 7 out of 10 movie, 8 if you really like slimy practical effects reminiscent of movies like the ‘Thing’.
The movie takes place in a world much like ours were instead of a global wide pandemic, a giant asteroid named Agatha 616 nearly crashes into the earth. But humanity binds together and nukes the hell out of it saving us from the asteroid, but releasing weird science chemicals into the air mutating every cold blooded creature into giant monsters.
And I got to say, the premise is pretty original. We very rarely get apocalypse scenarios that are not Zombies or Aliens, so it’s refreshing to remember that there are plenty of disgustingly resilient creatures that could easily destroy humanity right here on earth. If you know, they weren’t so small that their greatest weakness was a rolled up newspaper or a shoe.
So that’s the monsters part cowered, but where’s the love ?
The Story
Well our story follows Joel, a typical dorky millennial, who freezes when faced with any sort of monster. But luckily he is stuck in a bunker filled with badasses so he managed to survive for seven years.
But one day he manages to reconnect with his old girlfriend or as he likes to call her ‘his true love’ (Barf) over a radio, and decides to undergo a seven day journey to reach her by traversing the dangerous over infested world. (Man the number seven pops up a lot in this, a fitting score for this movie)
The story then truly begins, with Joel setting out into the overworld filled with giant bugs and reptiles as he heads aimlessly towards the bunker of his ex-girlfriend.
And props to the team cause the monster effects are great. It’s an amalgamation of practical effects and CGI and it works really well (for the most part, one monster is the exception, we’ll get to that).
Spoilers Ahead
Joel’s journey is interesting, but feels a bit rushed with way too much happening on his seven day trek.
He meets a dog and fights a giant frog(heh rhymed), and this dog like most dogs in movies was the highlight for me. The dog named “boy” (stupid name if you ask me) joins Joel on his journey.
He really is a good “Boy” haha…I hate myself
Then they are soon also joined by two other survivors: A little girl and a Woody Haralson clone. No seriously the whole movie I was going “Is that woody Haralson?” reprising his exact same role from Zombieland maybe a bit toned down. The two survivor helps Joel to “be braver” and “shoot better” and all the other necessary skills needed to survive the Overworld that you’d think would take more than 3 days to learn.
But seriously they are the same guy from different timelines
Now this is where it gets exposition heavy, Discount woody warns Joel about Sandgobblers, ferns that cure poisoning and how some monsters are actually nice. And every single bit of this information comes into play, which was a bit much. Chekov’s gun is one thing but this was more like Chekov’s bazooka
The two survivors split up with Joel and head north and ask him to join but he decides to stick with his true love bullshit, and head on west to find his love.
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