Monsters Of Man
The CIA is striking a covert partnership with an AIM company that has created robotic machines for land warfare. The only purpose of these joints working so efficiently is evidenced in their deployment against and dropping of the Golden Triangle in a bid to raid an opium factory. These machines do not have any advanced AI so they cannot think for themselves, but if a machine does become self-aware, it will be the beginning of a catastrophic situation.
LOWDOWN: The action is always a tough genre to pull off especially given the parameters that accompany such projects. The thing that makes this genre different from most others is the fact that action movies cannot be cheap looking and feel cheap either.
Theatrics and live action are important, but the spectacular performance is what drives the economy, hence why when a low budget movie achieves such feats, there is much celebration. And now, I just finished watching Veterans of Monsters of Man, and I can tell you that this movie is definitely underrated. With special sound and camera work as well, Monsters of Man is Everything a 260 million movie could ever be.
It’s a bit grand given the number of storylines involved. The illegal operation has none other than the fantastic Neal Mcdonough in the role of a CIA agent and there is the team that is on ground conducting the tests Hough, Havert and Blackmore. The drug village, home to more than just hardened criminals, as the place to be targeted.
The sweet spot is achieved when the focus is on the tech geeks who find themselves in a losing scenario and the village adolescents, an ex-army man and misplaced charitable doctors who are at the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole of Monsters Of Man film is about the civilians being caught in the crossfire trying to escape the danger and the unfortunate computer programmers who sit in the corner and wait to be reclaimed for the greatest purpose within their reach.
Mark Toia distinguishes Monsters Of Man from a range of other killer robot movies due to the moral ambiguity of the characters’ situations he constructs. Sometimes the doctor’s team allow their ego to put them in risky situations, or that the villains have a point sometimes. The people here exist in the grey of the circumstances, and it makes it impossible for this to regress into the ‘been there, done that’ category.
I was in support of coder Kroger (David Haverty), who not only totally owned all the scenes because of his humor and the fact that he was so relatable (I loved his hatred for the heat) but also that when he realized that they were going to be involved in a homicide in no time and so taught himself to shut the f*ck up for his self-preservation. Jose Rosete is the actor who is the gunman Boller, the peripheral character that provides support, and although he is ‘bad’, there came a time when I got fond of his no frills strategy. He is a stiff bastard and made me laugh a horrible amount. Good job, Rosete!
What is a nice bonus is how the robots are so nicely crafted. Given that this is a passion project, this is amongst the most convincing robot CGI I have ever encountered for a long time.
They appear to have some weight and there is the factor of the ground and the design they have. Everything is tense throughout the film because these slaughter bots are portrayed as nearly indestructible and very deadly from the get go. It gets messy when it’s time to ‘clean the room’ with the remaining witnesses.
There are a few targets though that emphasize on how brutal and ruthless these machines really are. It is very violent, women and children and even our protagonists who are meant to be down on their luck, so to speak, are in great danger. It is all rather unpredictable. I thought I would be clever predicting who would live and who would die, but I was wrong more times than I would like to admit.
Any downside to this? Neal McDonough is squandered and only sits in an office for the rest of the show. Such a fantastic voice whenever he barks orders, which is in every scene he is a part of, but I wish he would the chance to get more in the action. Over two hours in length, Monsters Of Man has moments of dragging where you feel like the plot just repeats itself because there is only so much point to running and hiding before the viewer stops caring about the characters well being.
This did feel a bit too long and did feel it could have done with some leanness and some aggressiveness in the middle. As a first go for writer and director Mark Toia, I congratulate him nevertheless, imperfections and all. Understand; A tighter cut would have improved it yes, but somehow I did enjoy the story which was supposed to be.
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