A Monter Calls

This is one of those times where an advertising campaign grossly misadvertises the movie. Remember when everyone thought "Lady in the Water" was going to be a horror film but it ended up being a fantasy? Same thing here. I thought this was going to be a fun fantasy "Boy and his creature" movie in the same vein as "E.T." or "Pete's Dragon," but this was actually a very serious drama. It was well acted, the CGI on the monster is some of the best I've ever seen (between this and the Beast in the "Beauty and the Beast" remake, I'm getting more and more amazed and impressed at how CGI/motion capture is getting more realistic, without being creepy like with "Polar Express") and even the story, though it was depressing was still very well told. My one issue with the casting is that Hollywood for some reason loves to cast Sigourney Weaver in mean roles. Every movie I've seen her in, her character is the meanest in the film. It's been that way for 30 years, to the point where it's almost a trope like "Sean Bean must die in everything he's in". She is very good in this, but it's the same character as every other movie she's been in. Personally, I didn't like this movie. I wanted to, but it was just too depressing. There is no hope to this film, and it just leaves you sad. Personally I blame that on the marketing advertising it as something it wasn't. Now that being said, the film is done very well. It's hard to get a huge range of emotion from child actors, and the actor who plays the boy absolultely rocks it. His sadness and anger feel genuine. When he has to come to terms with the bad hand life has dealt him, you understand why he does what he does. Sometimes the film was a bit hard to understand (is the monster real? Is he a metaphor?) and the story didn't flow very well at times. But I get it. The film is based off a book (which I haven't read) so things need to be taken out for time reasons. It was a well-made movie but it was super depressing.

Grade: C    7/10    3.5/5 stars