After monsters take over the world, Joel and the rest of humanity are forced to live underground. Believing he’s lost everyone he has ever loved, Joel finds his high school sweetheart Aimee living just 80 miles away. Facing unknown dangers that stand in his way, Joel must discover his inner-hero as he makes the impossible journey across a monster-infested land to be with the girl of his dreams.
I became a fan of Dylan O’Brien’s after watching “The Maze Runner” and its two subsequent sequels but it was his performance in “American Assassin” that proved he had the acting chops and onscreen charisma to carry a film on his own. I have to admit, I never even saw the trailer for “Love and Monsters” so when Paramount sent me a 4K review copy, I sat down to watch it blindly, with little to no information about the film at all. And I enjoyed it thoroughly as a result. With no spoilers in advance, I was able to accompany O’Brien on his monstrous escapades.
When a planet-killing asteroid heads straight for earth, the entire world bands together and combined, sends all of their nuclear missiles into outer space and successfully destroys the asteroid. But the success is short-lived when the chemical fallout from the explosion causes all of earth’s cold-blooded animals to evolve into large monsters, who proceed to eat most of mankind. The survivors make their way underground and live in bunkers, occasionally coming to the surface to hunt for food. Joel Dawson (Dylan O’Brien) lost his parents during the evacuation of their hometown, Fairfield, and got separated from his girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick), and now lives in a bunker with a group of fellow survivors. Whenever the group decides to scavenge for supplies, Joel desperately wants to join them but has a tendency to freeze in dangerous situations so he is constantly relegated to the kitchen.
Everyone in the group is in a relationship with somebody else while Joel is the only single person there and after he manages to reach Aimee on a vintage CB radio, and discovers that she is only 85 miles away on the coast, he packs up all of his stuff and decides to brave the dangerous world above to reach her so that he won’t die alone. Along the way, he befriends a stray dog called Boy and meets two survivors, Clyde Dutton and a young girl named Minnow (Michael Rooker and Ariana Greenblatt), who save him from a pit of man-eating worm-monsters. He joins them on their trek as they head for the mountains where a large assemblage of survivors have thrived in a colony with no outside interference from monsters. Along the way, Clyde and Minnow teach him to face his fears and how to shoot a bow and arrow. As Clyde and Minnow head off for the mountains, they ask Joel to follow them when he finds Aimee. He agrees and he and Boy set out for the coast but when they reach Aimee’s colony, there is an even bigger threat awaiting them, and only Joel and Boy can save the day.
Because of the film’s subject matter, it is filled with creative and imaginative monsters, some scary and some enchanting. Dylan O’Brien is a complete nerd until he manages to find his footing, then he turns into the romantic hero and saves the girl, and the day. He has some quiet moments of heartbreak and anguish, remembering the day he lost his parents, and injects the right amount of pathos into these scenes, to remind you that while some of the monsters are visually eye-popping, within the confines of the story, they are deadly and responsible for the death of his parents. The movie was shot completely in Australia and while the locations within supposedly transpire in the US, the Australian landscape is unmistakable, especially when they reach the coast. Its rugged and uncompromising terrain is undeniable and adds such a great atmosphere to the overall narrative. If you’re looking for something entertaining for the kids but without the excessive language, blood, and mayhem that might accompany an R-rated movie, “Love and Monsters” is the choice for you. You never know, you might actually enjoy it yourself.
Available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD January 5th
