Finally caught up to the film Monster Trucks that was apparently green-lit on the idea of the studio head’s four year old son (by the time the much delayed 120 million dollar movie was finally released, that studio head was long gone). It’s the story of an evil oil company who drills into an underground lake which spits out three squid-like creatures. One finds its way to a “teenager” at a junk-yard and manages to replace the engine on his truck. Thus… Monster Truck.
This isn’t a terrible movie. It gets a little tedious but it’s not unwatchable. The visual effects are good and probably explain the huge budget… though how they expected this movie to recoup is a mystery.
Biggest mystery is the weird point where you realize it villainizes oil companies in a movie that promotes the concept of monster trucks (and where Dodge is a huge product placement)… and if you think its ok because the monsters have replaced the internal combustion engine, you might be right until you realize the creatures eat oil. So… oil companies bad, gas-guzzling cars (and car-monsters) good.
Then again, the movie was imagined by a four year old… but maybe the ultimate screenwriter should have thought this through. On the other hand, he did think through – a bit too much – how the creatures would replace the engine, turn the axle to drive the wheels, etc. Almost too much thought, especially given how much we are expected to ignore during the over-wrought, unblievable driving action scenes in the final act that kind of toss out the minimal logic they were attempting in the first place. I guess I’d appreciate them just throwing up their hands and saying, “Screw it. Monster trucks!” instead of trying to justify their concept in the second act before chucking it all in the third.
Anyhow, the movie is aimed at kids and they might enjoy it. But, then again, if you want your kid to see a movie about a boy who befriends a creature from another world, feeds it in secret, and then has to protect it from a shady organization while trying to reunite it with its family, show him or her ET. This movie is kind of like a very oily ET where they swap out Reese’s Pieces with gallons of gasoline. Wouldn’t be the first movie to borrow from a Boy and his X (killer whale, alien, dog, transformer, etc) and its ultimately not the worst…
So, yeah, see it maybe on cable some day if you want. Plenty of opportunity to pause or browse your phone for better movies. But it doesn’t commit any major crimes, it’s well acted, it looks good… it just never really justifies its existence. It’s just not a good enough movie to really love and not a bad enough movie to hate.
Score: 72