2010 R 93 minutes
Six years after aliens invaded Earth, a security force maintains tenuous control in the Infected Zone straddling the U.S.-Mexican border. Andrew (Scoot McNairy), a photographer, is documenting this war-torn area when he's interrupted by an unexpected rescue mission. Samantha (Whitney Able), daughter of a media mogul who just happens to be his boss, needs an escort home, and Andrew reluctantly takes on the job.
I liked the sense of displacement and loss of control that can happen to anyone in a foreign country, and the feeling of a minimalist road movie, but maybe they were all more interesting than the Monsters. If Wim Wenders remade Paris, Texas - with monsters, it might look like this. The director and actors trade-in typical histrionics and cheap thrills for moody, one-note performances and long semi-spooky silences. There are also lots of Apocalypse Now visual rhymes (cars in trees, jets in rivers, boats in trees).
Beyond the incomprehensible "Day After Tomorrow" politics we eventually follow our hero and shero up a Mayan pyramid, presumably in Yucatan, thousands of miles south of the infected zone through which they are travelling north, and from which they look across the jungle-choked Rio Grande at a CGId wall designed to stop the ultimate illegal alien. That's not as silly as the world-weary photographer who hasn't learned any Spanish beyond "Si" and manages to get robbed by a Mexican prostitute. Spanish isn't all he hasn't learned.
Anywhooo, they eventually wander through a destroyed residential wasteland (Post-hurricane Galveston functions well enough in this role), and witness alien sex in a south Texas gas station parking lot (not the first time thats happened!). If you look past the flaws, this is a tolerable low-energy monster movie with limited but sometimes effective special effects and interesting atmosphere and acting. 3 out of 5 stars.
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