IN THE NOT-too-distant future, Mexico is under quarantine as US authorities struggle to contain the alien life forms that landed in the area years before. Ambushes and attacks by gigantic marauding creatures are common. Tentacles lurk everywhere.
As Monstersopens, the enormous, unwelcome visitors are getting antsy. An American photojournalist (Scoot McNairy) is ordered to abandon his assignment south of the border in order to escort his wealthy employer's daughter (Whitney Able) back to the US. If that wasn't problematic enough, his fondness for ladies and tequila leads to the loss of their passports and little option but to face a hazardous trek through the infected zone.
Another week, another alien invasion movie. Happily, this clever, low-budget sci-fi drama shares far more DNA with District 9than it does with Skyline. Like that recent apocalyptically dire apocalypse flick, Monstersis concerned with human interactions rather than extra- terrestrials. Unlike Skyline, however, Gareth Edwards's neat immigration allegory boasts a beginning, middle and end – and a chronological twist for good measure.
Shot in a handheld, documentary style, Edwards's debut feature makes remarkable use of its $500,000 budget. And it's not just about thrift: photojournalism is the new genre cinema. Nothing grounds monsters stomping across New York ( Cloverfield) or demonic possession ( The Last Exorcism) quite like news stock. And nothing, as Monstersdemonstrates, makes an alien more plausible than keeping the thing out of frame for as long as possible.
Good writing and dialogue that sounds like it was improvised but wasn't lends further credence to the fantastical premise. Hotly tipped young hipsters McNairy ( In Search of a Midnight Kiss) and Able ( All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) bicker and bond across dangerous terrain until the film looks more like The African Queenthan Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Indeed, get past the title and the analogy between aliens and illegal aliens and this is a date movie. And not just any old date movie, but the slimiest date movie of the season.
