Love and Monsters (2021) Review

After a much delayed release the film Love and Monsters made its way to Netflix yesterday and I watched it today and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees a young man in the apocalypse as he tries to travel for 7 days to find his Girlfriend, in a world that has become infested with monsters. 

Main Character

Dylan O'Brien plays the lead here and he does a really good job. He is just such a likeable character and one that is easy to root for, it makes the audience really want to see him succeed in his quest. He is funny and charming and just a really good lead character for this film. 

Supporting Characters

Jessica Henwick plays his girlfriend and when she is on screen she gives a good performance. Obviously, due to the narrative we don't spend too much time with her but when we do you really see the chemistry that her and O'Brien have and it raises up this pretty simple quest for love story. Michael Rooker is here as a survivor and he is great, he is just the perfect person to play his role and the scenes with him are some of the best of the film, it's just a bit of shame they didn't do more with him and Ariana Greenblatt's characters as they were highlights of the film for sure. I mean there is even a cool dog called Boy that joins them on their journey and plenty of time is given to show the bond between him and O'Brien and it is done really well. 

Story 

The story is interesting, I like the lore and backstory as to how the world went to hell and led to monsters being everywhere. There is also no denying that it is fun seeing O'Brien having to travel outside for the first  time where he is pretty useless at just about everything. But, I would say this works for the first two acts and then falls flat in its last act. It's like the writers wrote the film chronologically and weren't exactly sure how the film should end so they ended up with this strange last act of the film that doesn't quite mesh with the other elements put on screen. 

Script

The script is actually pretty good, this film is pretty funny and had me laughing quite a lot which considering it isn't a straight up comedy deserves some big credit. Also the film has some nice amount of heart, not all of it works but it is handled well enough. But as I said above I just can't get over the writing for the last act and how it feels very different to the other parts of the film and not in a particularly positive way. 

Style 

The style of the film looks great, the visuals are really good with the world being shown to be very luscious and beautiful despite all the bad that has happened. Also the creature designs all hold up and the CGI for them is all of a good quality. But the pacing for the film at times is a little off and yes I am mostly talking about the last 20/30 mins. which makes the film drag and maybe something more creative and keeping with the first two acts would have been better received by me. 

Overall

Overall, Love and Monsters was a big surprise for me and I ended up thinking that this is a good film. If you have 2 hours then I would say give this film a chance and with a pretty open ended ending there is chance for a new franchise to be made here.

Rating - 7/10