Before going into Monster Trucks, I decided I had to approach the film with the mind of a 12-year-old. This isn’t a film made for someone who just turned 32 so I knew it wouldn’t be entirely fair to judge it from that mindset. I was well aware of the issues with the film which included an astronomical budget and a $115 million write-down from Viacom over the project. Despite the bad press surrounding the film, Monster Trucks isn’t as terrible as it could be but even viewing the film through the eyes of a 12-year-old, I think my 12-year-old sensibilities would expect a bit more from what’s being thrown my way.
As the film opens, Tripp (Lucas Till) feels like an outsider at his high school, living with his single mom (Amy Ryan) in a modest house while lacking the means to fix his beloved truck to impress a girl. During a late-night trip to the junkyard, Tripp encounters a subterranean creature that apparently was brought to the surface by an oil drilling operation run by an unscrupulous executive (Rob Lowe).
He befriends the monster, which he names Creech, and allows him to wrap his many tentacles around the axels of his old clunker, giving it a supercharged boost. Conveniently, this not only gives Tripp the coolest car in school, but it also allows him to outrun the oil firm’s ruthless henchmen who know that exposing Creech and others of his species could be bad for business.
The thing that struck me the most, considering how much the film cost to make, is that the CGI looked a bit on the cheap side. This is especially troubling since most of the film relies on it so much throughout its runtime. Creech and the others like him do possess enough personality to stand out but their look appears rather pedestrian. It’s a shame because the creatures are a bit fun to watch and often have more personality than their human counterparts. If the film had more appeal I could see kids really responding to them and I guess that makes sense because, rumor has it, the idea for the film came from the four-year-old son of a studio exec.
At an hour and forty-four minutes, the film runs way too long and although the film comes alive when the monster trucks are front and center, the film’s human element drags down many scenes. It’s hard to really care about Tripp because the character is one big cliché. He’s misunderstood and operates in two modes: grinning goofily or treating everyone around him with complete disdain. We’ve seen this character in many films before and it doesn’t break new ground here. I won’t blame Lucas Till, who has proven himself to be a decent up and coming actor in other projects, but the bigger issue appears to be the script by Derek Connolly. Perhaps most of his efforts went into crafting the non-human characters because he seems a bit out of touch with how teenagers actually act. The issue could also be the director Chris Wedge is making his live-action debut with this film after doing animated projects such as Ice Age, Robots, and Epic. He’s clearly comfortable in that arena but seems to have issues making anyone with a pulse come to life.
There is a bit of a pro-environment message in the film that has good intentions but also comes off as a bit heavy-handed and is riddled with cliches. The evil oil company is portrayed as the typical evil oil company in every movie so we know we’re in for some kind of message before the film ends. It’s possible to present this message with some subtlety but Monster Trucks lacks that.
Somehow the film attracted some decent talent to fill some of the roles. Other than Lucas Till, Jane Levy is on board playing the typical would-be love interest but she is also let down by the script. Levy has shown some chops before (most recently in Don’t Breathe) but she has to display cliched personality traits to make her stand out as a teenager (honestly Till and Levy seem a bit too old to be playing high school, at least in a PG film aimed at younger kids). The adult talent, which includes Rob Lowe, Thomas Lennon, Danny Glover, Barry Pepper and Amy Ryan, all seem to be here to collect paychecks. It’s the only reason I could think of as to why they agreed to do the film. The movie doesn’t really utilize their talents.
I will say the film does a decent job of creating the chemistry between Tripp and his monster truck, Creech. Their union doesn’t break new ground but it’s the most believable relationship in the film. It’s not enough to make the film great but if more care was given to other parts of the story, there would be much more to recommend.
Monster Trucks has sat on the shelf since the summer of 2015 and given all the bad vibes surrounding it, I was expecting something truly awful. While the end result isn’t as bad as it could be, the film has its fair share of problems that justifies it being dumped in January. If the studio doesn’t really back it (that $115 million write-down was very telling) then how can audiences get behind it? 32-year-old Gaius would’ve completely ripped this apart but 12-year-old Gaius saw some potential but still expects more from his films.
Reel Talk gives Monster Trucks 1.5 Reels
