Part of that has to do with O’Brien’s charm, paired with his squeaky, perma-pubescent voice, with which the script has its clever way. The other part is the monster effects, which appear to be about half as computer generated as GvK‘s. For a decisive beach battle with a “crab from hell”, the filmmakers installed a huge inflatable crab doll on set so the actors have something to play against. On the other hand, when Hottle had to act with Kong, she had nothing to watch except a huge green screen. “One of the hardest parts was trying to pretend there was a connection there,” she said in an recent interview. In Love and monsters, the bonds are real, and not just between nice humans. The aforementioned cute kid, whom Joel meets on his air trip, teaches several important lessons, one of which is: Look at the eyes. It means the eyes of creatures. If they’re nice and kind, maybe they don’t want to eat you. Maybe they – and the movie they’re in – are less interested in dealing with spare parts than putting them back together.
Or not. A second monster movie, released in December, doesn’t even claim to have intelligence behind its eyes. In a pivotal scene, in fact, a monster hunter – the film is literally called Monster hunter– throws his spear at the wicked eye of an imposing sand rhino. Its purpose is true; goo eye is everywhere. This is where you know: this movie wants to be the purest, most perfect expression of what the genre can be.
In short, it succeeds. Monster hunter is the kind of movie that dares dummies to think it’s stupid. He makes himself painfully easy to criticize in the conventional language of criticism. None of the characters are “developed”. We cannot say that there is a “conspiracy”. All it is is one fight streak after another, things explode, body parts gush out, people die, interspersed with what barely qualifies as dialogue.
But none of these, to be clear, count as weaknesses. Such a commitment to schlock takes courage, a lot of courage! Unlike, say, Godzilla vs. Kong, who wastes too many resources in a pathetic attempt to establish a vital core of humanity, Monster hunter just puts you in front of bigger and bigger monsters, and nothing, neither the interdimensional lightning storms, nor the random tribe of desert warriors, nor the mysterious tower guarded by fire-breathing dragons, is ever explained, even remotely. Additionally, it stars the legendary Milla Jovovich – as directed, in their fifth collaboration together, by her husband, Paul WS Anderson. If the fun they have having fun here (and always) is any indication, theirs is the sluttiest wedding ever. At one point, Jovovich’s twin swords caught fire and she seeks an explanation. None are given.
Monster hunter has no end; as an adaptation of a narrative loop video game franchise, it simply stops. In the middle of the fight, to be exact. You are amazed, relieved and ready to play again. Here is finally a monster movie that really knows itself. There is no tearful reunion, no promise of a better future. More carnage on the other side.
That’s what Godzilla vs. Kong, in the final analysis – and even Love and monsters, as adorable as he is, does not understand. Monster movies don’t average whatever. Maybe they play on our fears. Nuclear war. Of invasion. From infection. But they have nothing to say about these fears. They are metaphors, in a sense, of an absence of metaphors. Are monster movies hitting harder, more differently, now that we emerge on the other side of a stupid and unnecessary pandemic, which has leveled cities and people across the planet? Not at all. If anything, their purpose, if they have one, is clearer than ever. There is nothing to learn, nothing to gain, senseless death and destruction.
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