Monsters

Um das Drehbuch, die Kamera, die Regie und die visuellen Effekte kümmerte sich eine Person und noch dazu ein Spielfilm-Debütant. Das Budget betrug 800 000 US-Dollar. Diejenigen, die dieses Werk als unterdurchschnittlich bewerten, sollten sich etwas von Asylum ansehen. Sharknado - Genug gesagt! war um 200 000 US-Dollar teurerer. Im Hinblick darauf, wie wenige Monster es im Film gibt, kann er überraschend gut die Aufmerksamkeit des Publikums fesseln. Das passierte mir bei dem 300 Millionen kostenden und drei Stunden dauernden Avatar - Aufbruch nach Pandora kein einziges Mal. Es reichen einige Schilder mit der Aufschrift "Infected Zone", exotische Schauplätze und ein geschicktes Auge des Regisseurs. Die zwei Hauptdarsteller*innen sind keine Stars. Sie spielen natürlich, verderben nichts, aber sorgen auch für keine Intensivierung. Der ganze Film baut auf Stimmung und einer geheimnisvollen Atmosphäre. Und es funktioniert. Die Warners wissen, was sie machen. Einen vierten Stern gebe ich nur wegen dem schlampig gemachten Drehbuch am Ende nicht. (16.04.2014)

An alternative monster movie. This film will disappoint a lot of people, that’s for sure; it would be hard to find something less gratifying for the viewer. The problem is that in Monsters ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens, it’s only about two characters moving from point A to point B, which is not something most people will find appealing. The joke is, though, that it’s the very lack of action which makes Monsters something unique in science fiction; the low budget and the weak special effects (which are excellent considering the budget) are never a problem. This is actually some sort of “a travel report from an infected zone” where helicopters fly over your head at every moment, an extraterrestrial octopus goes through a garden, and nobody cares too much because it’s something normal. It doesn’t matter then that the protagonists don’t do anything, that they aren’t at the centre of the action, unlike those passer-bys in other monster flicks, who by chance (or “by chance”, depending on the skill of the screenwriter) find themselves in the middle of the action and save their loved ones, or their town, or the world; here there’s absolutely no action around them, and so they wander, looking around, and you look around with them. Add to this the excellent work with the music and the sound, and you get a very unusual travelogue – though that word is actually very pointless here. Forget about District 9, Cloverfield, The Mist and other movies that could be compared to this one at first sight, this is something completely different. (27.09.2010)

Taken with distance, what's most impressive about "Zakázaná zóna" is that the film looks much more expensive than it actually is, as if a large and influential studio stood behind it. Typically, it's the other way around. Gareth Edwards certainly presented himself well to the producers and demonstrated that he has what it takes for a big-budget production. On the other hand, the film looks somewhat conflicted. For many tastes, it's too intimate, shot in a documentary style where the average viewer would expect action, scares, simply at least a small dose of favorite genre clichés. Edwards, however, opts for unpretentiousness; danger is mostly hinted at somewhere behind the wall of trees in the tropical jungle, from vague movements in the shadows or water, and mysterious sounds that tantalize the imagination, hiding anything. On one hand, I was grateful that it avoided the traditional genre baggage that drowned so many other titles; on the other hand, it could have been conceived better. One hundred-meter octopuses may look impressive, but with such an invasion, humans would deal with them just fine. We have arsenals of weapons that we don't know what to do with, and the poor easily identifiable octopuses would get such a beating that animal rights activists would have nothing to protect. The real danger of contaminating the Earth's atmosphere would come more from microorganisms that could spread uncontrollably. In the movie, I didn't understand the growing dominance of the extraterrestrial invaders, and I certainly didn't understand how the oversized octopuses managed with gravity. No wonder the largest planetary organisms live in the ocean. So the octopuses probably sweet-talked or bribed gravity somehow. It would also be worth considering why the well-off dad didn't arrange air transport for his daughter, and I also thought that... Well, it could go on for a long time. As a road movie through a sick world where functioning institutions and certainties have collapsed, it wasn't bad, so in the end, I'll rate "Zakázaná zóna" at 60% overall impression. (20.03.2015)

A great and unconventional piece about monsters (almost) without any monsters. Edwards can squeeze the atmosphere out of the unseen, like Abrams or Spielberg, mainly through the use of sound, camera work, and lighting. Goosebumps and suspense are what this film is about, not aliens, regardless of the well-executed (for the money!) special effects. (29.06.2011)

Ein ausgezeichneter Film aus einer glaubhaft dargestellten Welt, in der in einem Teil von Mexiko Kopffüßer aus dem Weltall leben. Man sieht zwar nicht viele von ihnen, aber umso besser sind ihre Szenen. Vom Anfang bis zum Ende sitzt man mit sympathisch gewöhnlichen Figuren im gleichen Boot – nicht mit Soldaten, Wissenschaftlern oder Superhelden. Außerdem sieht man, dass Gareth Edwards Steven Spielberg mag und seine Arbeit versteht. Deshalb kann er sich z. B. erlauben, in der Szene mit dem Angriff auf das Auto Jurassic Park zu zitieren, ohne dass es lächerlich oder eingebildet wirken würde. Im Gegenteil – es ist super und ich verstehe jetzt, warum er das Angebot für die Regie von Godzilla bekommen hat und warum der Film so ist, wie er ist. (23.07.2017)