Love and Monsters
Love and Monsters (film)
| Love and Monsters | |
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 Official release poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Matthews |
| Produced by |
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| Screenplay by | |
| Story by | Brian Duffield |
| Starring |
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| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Lachlan Milne |
| Edited by |
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Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 109 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million[2] |
| Box office | $1.1 million[3] |
Love and Monsters is a 2020 American monster adventure film directed by Michael Matthews, with Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen serving as producers. The film stars Dylan O'Brien, Jessica Henwick, Dan Ewing, Michael Rooker and Ariana Greenblatt, and follows a young man in a post-apocalyptic world who must make the journey to reunite with his girlfriend.
Development began in 2012, the project lingered for several years until in October 2018, O'Brien and then Matthews joined the film. The rest of the cast joined over the next few months, and filming took place in Australia from March to May 2019.
The film was originally going to be a wide theatrical release by Paramount Pictures in February 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the studio opted to release the film digitally via video on demand, and in select theaters, on October 16, 2020. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot[edit]
After the destruction of an asteroid headed for Earth, the chemical fallout causes all cold-blooded animals to mutate into large monsters. During the evacuation of Fairfield, Joel Dawson is separated from his girlfriend Aimee but promises to find her, and his parents are killed.
Seven years later, Joel lives in one of many underground bunkers called "colonies", where other survivors, except for him, have romantically paired up with each other while fighting monsters and scavenging for supplies. Joel instead is left behind in the kitchen, as he is notorious for freezing in dangerous situations. When a giant ant breaches his colony, killing one of the survivors, Joel sets off on a quest to reunite with Aimee so that he doesn't end up alone.
Passing through the suburbs, Joel is attacked by a giant toad-monster but is saved by a stray dog named "Boy", who follows Joel on his journey, warning him against poisonous berries and other dangers. Joel falls into a nest of worm-monsters called "Sand-Gobblers", when two survivors, Clyde Dutton and Minnow, rescue him. They are heading north to the mountains, where the colder weather and higher elevation means fewer monsters. They teach Joel some basic survival skills, and how not all monsters are hostile, demonstrating how "You can always tell in their eyes". They invite Joel to stay with them, but Joel insists that he must find Aimee. As they part ways, Clyde gifts Joel with a grenade.
As Joel continues west, Boy becomes trapped by a giant centipede-monster. Joel freezes, but eventually shoots and kills the monster with his crossbow, saving Boy. Sheltering in an abandoned motel, they meet a robot named Mav1s. Before her battery dies, Mav1s powers his radio long enough to briefly contact Aimee, where he learns that new survivors have reached her colony, promising to lead them away to safety. The next day Joel and Boy are attacked by a Queen Sand-Gobbler. They hide, but Boy barks, giving away their position. Joel kills the Queen with the grenade but yells at Boy for putting them in danger, causing Boy to run away. After swimming across a river, Joel is covered in poisonous leeches and hallucinates, but is rescued before he collapses.
Joel wakes to finally see Aimee. She leads a beach colony of elderly survivors who depend on her. Joel is introduced to the new survivors, Cap, and his crew. As everyone celebrates their imminent departure, Aimee confesses she is glad to see Joel, but has become a different person and is still mourning someone she had become close to. Joel decides to return to his colony and contacts them on the radio, learning that it has become unsafe and that they too must leave soon. Cap sends Joel some berries, which he recognizes as poisonous. Realizing Cap is not to be trusted, he rushes to warn Aimee but is knocked unconscious.
Joel, Aimee, and the rest of her colony awaken tied-up on the beach. Cap reveals that his group is there to steal supplies and that their yacht is towed by a crab-monster that Cap controls with an electrified chain. Cap sets the crab to feed on the colonists, but Joel and Aimee escape and are able to fight for their lives, and Boy returns to help. Joel has the opportunity to kill the crab, but he determines that the crab is not hostile by looking into its eyes, and shoots the electrified chain, freeing it. The crab leaves Joel unharmed and instead kills Cap and his crew, and sinks the yacht.
Joel recommends Aimee and her colony head north. They share a romantic goodbye kiss, and Aimee promises she will find him. Joel treks all the way back to his colony, and they too decide to head to the mountains. On the radio, Joel inspires other colonies to take to the surface. As everyone heads north, Clyde and Minnow, already in the mountains, wonder if Joel will survive the next journey.
Cast[edit]
- Dylan O'Brien as Joel Dawson
- Jessica Henwick as Aimee, Joel's girlfriend from before the apocalypse
- Michael Rooker as Clyde Dutton, a survival expert
- Dan Ewing as Cap
- Ariana Greenblatt as Minnow
- Ellen Hollman as Dana
- Tre Hale as Rocko
- Pacharo Mzembe as Ray
- Senie Priti as Karen
- Amali Golden as Ava
- Melanie Zanetti as Mav1s
- Donnie Baxter as Parker
- Andrew Buchanan as Mr Dawson
Production[edit]
In June 2012, it was announced that Paramount Pictures was developing the film Monster Problems, with Shawn Levy producing, based on a spec script by Brian Duffield. It was described as a post-apocalyptic road movie in the vein of Mad Max and Zombieland with a John Hughes-esque love story.[4]
In October 2018, it was announced that Dylan O'Brien was in talks to star, and that Michael Matthews was directing the film.[5] By March 2019, Michael Rooker and Ariana Greenblatt had joined O'Brien.[6][7] In April 2019, it was announced that Jessica Henwick had joined the cast.[8] Also in April, Australian actor Dan Ewing joined the film in a supporting role.[9] Principal photography started in Gold Coast on March 25, 2019, and ended in May 2019.[10][11]
Producer Shawn Levy said the film "benefited immensely" from the work of cinematographer Lachlan Milne, with whom he had previous worked on Stranger Things.[12] Stunts were coordinated by Glenn Suter who had worked with O'Brien when he returned to complete the third Maze Runner film, after having experienced a serious accident during a stunt.[13] The stunts were a challenge for Henwick because she had to work to look less competent, despite years of training for the Marvel television shows.[14] The dogs were trained by Zelie Bullen, the main dog was called Hero, and his double was called Dodge.[13][15]
The visual effects for the film were completed and managed by Millfilm Adelaide in collaboration with MPC Bangalore and MPC LA.[citation needed]
Release[edit]
The film was originally slated to release on March 6, 2020, but in October 2019, the release date was moved to April 17, 2020.[16] In February 2020, it was pushed back again, to February 12, 2021.[17]
In August 2020, Paramount announced that due to COVID-19 pandemic the film would be released via video on demand on October 16, 2020. The film's title was changed from Monster Problems to Love and Monsters.[18] The film also played in 387 theaters for the weekend of October 16–18, 2020.[19]
Reception[edit]
Box office and VOD[edit]
In its debut weekend, Love and Monsters was the number one most rented film on FandangoNow and Apple TV.[2] The film also played in 387 theaters alongside its VOD release, and grossed $255,000 in its opening weekend.[20] In its second weekend, the film finished second at Apple TV, third at Fandango, and eighth at Spectrum,[21] then placed second at Spectrum, fifth at Fandango, and seventh at Google in its third weekend.[22]
Critical response[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7.20/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Led by a charming star turn from Dylan O'Brien, Love and Monsters peers into the apocalypse and finds an action-adventure with surprising emotional depth."[23] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[24]
Jessica Kiang of Variety called it: "A fun if forgettable family-friendly adventure comedy set in a 'monsterpocalypse'" and a "silly but satisfying hero's journey entirely unencumbered by importance." Kiang notes that the film is based on an original script but feels familiar as if it was adapted from existing material because it fits into the coming-of age genre and references various other films such as I Am Legend, A Boy and His Dog, Zombieland, Tremors and Stand by Me.[25] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The movie's last act offers complications both expected and surprising. For the most part, it satisfies, especially in what proves to be the pic's most elaborate action sequence."[26] Indiewire's David Ehrlich wrote: "Love and Monsters is the rarest kind of movie these days: A fun, imaginative, genre-mashing adventure that was made with a modest amount of big studio money."[27]
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