This movie is yet another example of how I/we can be fooled. Look at all the glowing reviews, high user ratings, 3 superb actors. How could this movie at least not be decent?
It isn't even decent because among the script, the concepts, every aspect of the movie, nothing works. I don't demand that a movie be great in order to like it, yet I can't think of anything redeeming about this movie. It is silly, it is stupid, it is vapid, it is ridiculously bad. A boy is grieving that his mother is dying of cancer, and he has to face his deepest fears, both in his waking life and in his dream world. He is bullied at school (and this isn't done very well either). A monster comes along who has the answers; well, he doesn't have the answers, because as he says, life is complicated, humans are complicated. So boy, just face the world, tell/live the truth, do the best you can, life is tough. Yes, this is a monster: he is tough, but he is also gentle, kind, patient. Oh, he speaks such profound truths in that monster voice of his. It's pathetic, really.
The boy has this bizarre need to destroy things. He destroys everything in his grandmother's sitting room. Yet everyone, including the monster, tells the boy that it's just fine: if you need to destroy, then destroy you must. The great Sigourney Weaver, though at least her English accent is passable, has absolutely no chemistry with the actor who plays the boy, and maybe that's because his performance is vile.
Yes, the special effects with the monster are quite good - that's the only decent thing about this joke of a movie.
Nobody seems to get one of the obvious truths of this story, which is that the boy is in his own way is clearly a monster. And now, having exorcised my own demons about this awful movie, I can put this bad experience behind me.
It isn't even decent because among the script, the concepts, every aspect of the movie, nothing works. I don't demand that a movie be great in order to like it, yet I can't think of anything redeeming about this movie. It is silly, it is stupid, it is vapid, it is ridiculously bad. A boy is grieving that his mother is dying of cancer, and he has to face his deepest fears, both in his waking life and in his dream world. He is bullied at school (and this isn't done very well either). A monster comes along who has the answers; well, he doesn't have the answers, because as he says, life is complicated, humans are complicated. So boy, just face the world, tell/live the truth, do the best you can, life is tough. Yes, this is a monster: he is tough, but he is also gentle, kind, patient. Oh, he speaks such profound truths in that monster voice of his. It's pathetic, really.
The boy has this bizarre need to destroy things. He destroys everything in his grandmother's sitting room. Yet everyone, including the monster, tells the boy that it's just fine: if you need to destroy, then destroy you must. The great Sigourney Weaver, though at least her English accent is passable, has absolutely no chemistry with the actor who plays the boy, and maybe that's because his performance is vile.
Yes, the special effects with the monster are quite good - that's the only decent thing about this joke of a movie.
Nobody seems to get one of the obvious truths of this story, which is that the boy is in his own way is clearly a monster. And now, having exorcised my own demons about this awful movie, I can put this bad experience behind me.