Love, Monsters and Comedy; Oh My!

 Astroid heads to earth - earth sends rockets to stop them- saves earth. Actually dooms earth due to the chemical compounds needed for the rockets which rain down and changed cold blooded creatures which meant about 95% of the population was killed in a year. That is the summary of how we have gotten to the point where the movie starts. Side note: I could listen to Dylan do an audiobook all day. 

Joel is living life as a single person in a bunker where everyone has found their soulmate, and narrates letters to Amy. Joel is the cook and has a friendship with Mavis the non-working robot. The bunker is breached and Joel is eager to join in but apparently he gets scared to the point he is a liability which is explained to him in a clearly rehearsed speech. This is something we become familiar with not long after. 

Flashbacks establish Joel and Aimee as a cute somewhat typical high school couple, up until the world started to basically blow itself up. 

Back to now we learn Joel has been drawing the creatures and noting how to kill them (is this going to be important later on? yes, yes it is) and that he was able to get in radio contact with Amy but it gets cut off. 

“I’m done waiting for things to get better” and with that Joel heads off to find the one person who made him happy with the advice to use his strengths -that he is small and fast so run and hide.

I’m not going to spoil too much beyond this but I will say it immediately seems like a bad decision that he goes off by himself and the humour played is great and whoever casted Dylan O’Brien knew how to use him. There are definitely elements of Stiles evident but this is not type casting but I will say if you loved Arles you will love Joel. Also full kudos to Dylan for playing it as real, in something with the comedy it has he plays the fear real complete with tears in his eyes and shaking. That stops it from playing too farcical.

 

In supporting we have Michael Rooker serving some nice Tallahassee (Zombieland) vibes and Ariana Greenblatt has just the right amount of smart, sassy attitude. They give survival skill tips as well as tips, like looking in their eyes, to help him with handling the creatures and I would have loved to see more of them. Jessica Henwick is great as Aimee, a character that could be so easy to screw up she and the writers kept her likeable and made certain things clear without taking away from the main premise. Another Mavis is an amazing campanion for an emotion scene as well as reprieve from the action. For Australian viewers Cap is played by Dan Ewing aka Heath Braxton of Home and Away fame who does a good job at playing the strong, edging on controlling leader of another colony. 

I also can not talk about this move and not mention the brilliant Boy. He is the perfect offsider to Joel not only for emotional reasons but he is able to help him when he needs it. As a sucker for dogs in films these two were up there as a partnership. 

Overall this movie is a perfect balance of comedy, drama and action. It deftly handles stories of love, friendship, family, survival and understanding in ways that will have you laughing and crying. A final credit to the director, Michael Matthews, who pulled all these elements together the way he did. 

This is a perfect movie night movie in Netflix and I strongly recommend it to everyone. 

I also would like to go on record to say I would very much enjoy a sequel if it was to happen. This is high praise since I don’t usually want sequels and I don’t settle (IYKYK 😉).