Review of Love and Monsters (2021) by Flipje — 25 May 2021

Netflix film that feels like a Netflix film, through and through. It is fun, easy to digest with acting that does the trick without offering more. To me, this is the equivalent of an airplane book you nab before taking a long flight or a broken-spine paperback you pick up at a garage sale on a Saturday morning.

The world we know and love is gone and is currently filled with monsters or so you find out on the back cover and Hero-guy is on a journey. Yep, a journey. Don't worry, despite the 'originality' he is likeable and offers commentary and expositional asides as he goes on his typical hero's journey.

His want: to join up with the love of his former, pre-apocalyptic life (he's getting tired of listening to his good friends boink in their underground bunkers). His need: to become brave and more confident.

His friends pshaw him...cue "you won't survive without us" chorus but oh, au contraire... on the surface of monster-land, he first befriends a dog that is a perfect prototype of man's best friend (care of the screenwriter): reliable, intelligent, sentimental and all around good soul.

Next he meets a quasi father-daughter team who teach him a thing or two about the landscape and what to look out for. So, here he gets lessons in survival skills. Then a robot who keeps him company (don't worry, no post-apocalyptic, digital hanky-panky) and he has his share of growing pains via valiant battles then lo and behold, he meets his love who turns out not to be so much in love with him anymore.

She's kind of moved on, bro. But yeah, there is a villain with an Australian accent who at first seems legit (he brews his own beer) but he is too good to be true for Mr. Hero. Turns out, lame, he only wants his giant crab to have food (i.

E. people) so said crab will have energy to get him to take the next group of survivors he and his crew can hoodwink. Hero escapes and learns/realizes during battle that the crab is under the dominion of bad Aussie man and blasts the poor crustacean free.

Next thing, crab has the revenge vibe and villain and henchmen are gobbled up good and the end is: well, Hero is respected and maybe, he will get 'some' later. But now, time to get people out of bunkers, back on the surface and into the mountains where the monsters don't go.

Boom. Book cover closed. The end. Toss it. Fun and forgettable which is sadly a Netflix norm. But hey, a pizza movie that is light and for a Friday night, why not? Why not, indeed.