People/services/companies/bands who do announcements of announcements. Sometimes even announcements of announcements of announcements. You have the information you're announcing, just fucking tell us already. I'm not going to come back in two days at a specific time just to pander to your whims, get out.
People with pets who refer to them as their babies or themselves at their animals' Mummy or Daddy. Unless you actually birthed the furry little bastards from your own personal loins (in which case I would suggest seeking medical help and possibly an agent for the inevitable talk show appearances) then you're an owner, not a parent. Grow up.
Jake and Logan Paul. I probably need say no more, but I would love to see either/both of them absolutely brutalised by someone with an ounce of striking ability. Or a 2 x 4, I'm not fussy.
YouTube putting 30 minute infomercials in the middle of ten minute content videos. Or some fucking terrible unsigned grime or trap video full of idiots trying to show off how very Gangsta they are. Or just slapping 48 little ads at random intervals throughout. Yes I know you can skip them, no it doesn't make me any less pissy about it.
Why do I have to be eyeballed by suspicious checkout staff every time I buy a can of Monster? I mean I know why, because the Nanny State, Totalitarian, Authoritarian shitlord Government says so, but seriously, why?
Anyway, that's off my chest so we can get on with it.
Netflix has a pretty rough history of Original movies. Most of them are mediocre at absolute best and heaping turds at worst. Love and Monsters sits somewhere in the middle; I'm not going to tell you it was the best movie I've ever seen but it didn't make me want to smash my own nuts in with a cinder block so, small mercies I guess.
The basic premise is fairly familiar "alien gubbins on a meteorite turn all Earth's creepy crawlies into giant beasties" trope mixed with some teen Rom-Com vibes. It's not sloppy or overly weepy which is good, because it's have lasted about 2 minutes if it was. It's more about the central character Joel learning not to be a giant, wet, useless idiot; some of which he kind of manages by the end.
Joel isn't completely unlikeable as a protagonist but he's really close. He acts as narrator which is helpful when vast portions of the movie is just Joel traipsing solo across parts of the map marked 'here be monsters' to re-unite with his long lost love. That makes it sound much more dull than it is; unlike Zombieland where we're given the rules from the start, Joel has to learn them on the hoof from a grizzled Michael Rooker and his teenage girl sidekick which ultimately does work quite well in a sort of extended 80s-style training montage even if it is a bit obvious. The dog is probably the star of the show, injecting some emotional stakes into proceedings and giving Joel a good reason to get better at not dying horribly in the maw of some giant mutated bug.
It isn't perfect by any means. The monsters are really nicely realised but there are kind of too few for a movie where a third of the title is literally the word Monsters. They kind of tease a big nasty that you never really see and sort of disappears from the script unceremoniously, to be replaced with a very brief scene with something with more of a rep than it seems like it deserves. There's quite a lot of obvious foreshadowing and not a massive amount of surprises in store which is a bit disappointing I guess. The final act is predictable to a fault; if you can't spot the inevitable double-cross coming the instant you see the cut-and-paste douchebags arrive then you deserve everything you get. Similarly, if you don't see the pay off from the earlier foreshadowing then I feel like you might have been watching some terrible Bruce Willis movie instead. They do carry Joel's character arc all the way through to the end and it is fairly satisfying to see where he ends up if I'm honest. Mildly less annoying, much more capable, marginally more likeable. It's just refreshing to have a character that isn't completely one dimensional for a change.
Listen, I get it. This is firmly aimed at the Teen/ Young Adult market and I am far too old, cynical and jaded for this sort of life affirming story of personal growth, but in the interests of fairness and full disclosure, it wasn't terrible. It certainly wasn't the kind of brain numbing shit Netflix has historically unleashed on the unsuspecting public. Importantly, it was diverting enough for an hour and a half and I didn't suffer from waves of horrible regret after watching it. I'll take that.
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