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Dec 13, 2010100An amazing achievement for a 'first-time' filmmaker, which measures up to the finest indies for performance and character-work, and the biggest blockbusters for jaw-dropping effects. And it has the year's best sex scene, too.
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89The film is a startlingly original and haunting take on our ageless fear of otherness.
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88With Monsters, Edwards transcends the special-effects auteur label, creating a memorable sci-fi story in which the hero and heroine are true equals in the adventure. How's that for an alien concept?
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88Monsters holds our attention ever more deeply as we realize it's not a casual exploitation picture.
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83Monsters is really a road-movie romance that tracks the burgeoning relationship between two strangers as they travel through the "infected" zone.
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80However you slice it, Monsters is a dynamite little film, loaded with atmosphere, intelligence, beauty and courage.
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80Monsters is enormously satisfying in the way it combines suspense, romance and sci-fi. It heralds a bright new talent in Edwards. If he can do all this for no money, imagine what he can do with a real budget.
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75Monsters, like a serpent eating its own tail, comes back on itself in ways that haunt, and hurt.
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75Monsters is a tiny sci-fi thriller that makes up what it lacks in big effects with a fine photographic eye, a low-key sense of scale, and a genuine (if not always well-performed) human drama.
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75Monsters is a sharp little low-fi monster movie operating from a tantalizing premise.
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75Edwards is a wizard with his laptop's effects program. The squiddy things he conjures up look like the real deal - thoroughly creepy and a gazillion feet tall. Too bad his screenwriting software didn't have an equivalently impressive plot-twisting algorithm to get him to the final fade.
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75Monsters works not because of its representation of alien creatures or its somewhat derivative back story but because of the atypical manner in which it approaches the character-based narrative.
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70Monsters effortlessly compels. The ending may be pure sci-fi schmaltz, but it's schmaltz that this viewer, at least, could believe in.
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70Wait a second, is this a horror movie or an episode of The Hills?
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70Although the tentative performances of his two human leads proves less satisfying, and the story's not-so-underlying sociological context can be hard to miss -- it takes place along the U.S.-Mexico border -- the overall picture still impresses.
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67Gareth Edwards' low-budget science-fiction film Monsters is both a testament to what the latest technologies allow filmmakers to do, and-on the downside-a testament to the enduring importance of a good script.
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63Monsters is a genuine curio: a moody, low-budget road-movie romance that takes place against a background of alien invasion.
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60There's so much right with Gareth Edwards's low-budget alien invasion tale that you almost want to brush aside everything that's not up to snuff.
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Oct 26, 201060Director Gareth Edwards, a CGI artist by trade, has created a dystopian landscape that's so naturalistic, it's uncanny.
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50An arty, ruminative and slow-paced film that's being marketed as a big ol' alien-invasion flick. Just don't expect an invasion flick.
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50The new creature feature Monsters is an intriguing mash-up of "District 9," "The Host" and assorted recent post-apocalypse road pictures.
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50The result is notably dim and flat on a big screen, and the giant-monster scenes, often cloaked in darkness, are few and disappointing. Edwards tries to take the high road with a politically intriguing premise (a la District 9) and a tight focus on the evolving relationship between his two traveling companions, but his shapeless script doesn't do much with either element.
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40What brings Monsters down from its extremely low perch is a conspicuous lack of monstrosity.
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40An attempt to counter noisy, hyper effects-laden alien invasion flicks with something teasing, indie and good for you. Instead, it's like a pendulum swing too far in the other direction.
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38No ordinary horror film. If it were, it might be a bit better than it is. As the movie stands, it's a less-than-compelling relationship drama, with aliens.
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25The only thing remotely scary about Monsters is that Magnolia is releasing this boring scare-, suspense- and gore-free horror movie (which reportedly cost less than $100,000) on Halloween weekend.