There may be invasive aliens fifty feet tall, but life in northern Mexico still needs to go on in Monsters (2010). Rich heiress Samantha Wyden is to be escorted by news photographer Andrew Kaulder through the “infected zone” and to her father, who happens to employ Kaulder. This is not the story of heroism and great monsters, though, but how the personal foibles of these two characters interact with the effects of fifty foot tall monsters on local society, from finding and funding mules to get them across the zone to indulging in the local sex trade.
But the themes of this movie become incoherent as monsters strips away the supporting characters, and as they cross the American border and find an abandoned town, the exact goal of the storytellers becomes difficult to decipher. Is this an allegory about the invalidity of xenophobia? Maybe – but it’s worth remembering xenophobia is not necessarily a bad thing. How about the grisliness of capitalism? Could be.
The acting and effects are good, but the characters are a bit dull and the story probably needed a rewrite.