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So there's this lab in outer space where an evil corporation creates evil supermonsters out of harmless animals. Of course, something goes wrong, the lab explodes, and somehow the monster serum makes it to earth in an escape pod where it crashes near an animal sanctuary, where it turns three animals into giant monsters, a wolf, an alligator, and an albino gorilla with almost humanlike intelligence. The evil corporation's bosses (Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy) decides it's a fabulous idea to lure the three monsters to their headquarters, even though their headquarters are not at all equipped to handle giant monsters and are in Chicago city center. Of course, it's also unclear what they even want to do when they have the monsters in there, but really, who gives a shit.

Now there's also a scientist who formerly worked at the evil corporation, Kate (Naomie Harris), but created monsters only to cure cancer, and when she found out what the evil corporation was intending to use the monsters for - not that that's ever properly revealed, but who gives a shit, right? - she quit her job. Kate of course knows that ... not sure, probably that monsters are heading to Chicago city center is not a good idea, but for her knowledge, the evil corporation is putting the blame on her, so suddenly she's wanted by the FBI - but then she runs into primatologist Davis Okoye, who's a good guy because he doesn't like poachers, who can communicate with the albino gorilla using sign language, who's of course also former Navy Seals and who's a crack helicopter pilot, and who looks exactly like the Rock (and is thus played by Dwayne Johnson). So of course, after much to and fro, everything ends happily, and in the finale the albino gorilla of course fights side by side with the Rock against the other monsters.

Now I do have a soft spot for giant monster movies ... but what the heck was this crap? It's unbelievable that this totally generic pile of genre clichés took four writers to conceive, and even more unbelievable that somebody not only greenlit it but also spend $120 million on what's basically a tired B picture yarn. Now the problem with the film on the story side of things is not so much the plot's silliness, which I at times find quite charming actually, but its lack of urgency. Sure, there are three giant monsters wreaking havoc in Chicago, but the finale is actually anticipated very early in the film, when we first meet the gentle and intelligent gorilla, and then knowing Dwayne Johnson's character has all the qualifications to handle the situation, knows a solution to every problem and basically never errs doesn't exactly spell tension. Frankly, it's exclusively to Dwayne Johnson's natural charm that one cares about his character at all - which is more than can be said about the rest of the paper-thin characters, really. The other big problem with the film is its special effects, which look entirely too clinical, as if they were generated by computer rather then out of flesh and blood - and of course that's exactly true, the problem is it's so obvious: Seeing Chicago attacked by CGI effects just doesn't carry the same level of excitement than a monster attack.

In all a shame really, as I wanted to like this, liking monster movies in general, but the film really lacked in terms of execution.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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