APE VS MONSTER (2021)

APE VS MONSTER (2021)

Tagline: The Greatest Of All Time!

(Action, Adventure, Kaiju) [R]

Note- The only thing in this movie that would have given it an R is the language, but the MPAA did not designate a rating for this film.

 So, we're looking at two remote-controlled monsters guided by an alien mother ship headed for earth?

In this one, a monkey that has been launched into space and lost for 30+ years ends up crash landing back to earth. The ape has come in contact with a chemical agent that makes it and a Gila monster passing by into giant mutations. The Pentagon discovers that an alien spaceship is controlling the monsters, but the ape isn’t participating in the program. Can earth survive these two menaces?

First off, as it turns out there is a bit of stock footage in this movie and the “monster” design is actually a Dino Beast model from Turbosquid, but it’s actually not a bad design. The ape CGI is actually pretty decent here as well. Granted, none of this is on the level of GODZILLA VS KONG (which this movie is really trying to capitalize on), but as “mockbusters” go, this is far from the worst we have seen out of The Asylum movie studio.  

Plot-wise this thing is actually a lot closer to the movie RAMPAGE than it is GODZILLA VS KONG, but the huge difference is in quality and script. There is a ton of time in this movie where we can tell everyone is sitting in a basement with bad lighting (that is supposed to be the war room at the Pentagon) talking about pretty much nothing. Egos are getting flexed and somehow Dr. Linda Murphy manages to end up with a bit of a promotion when it’s all over. Kind of odd for someone that spent most of the movie ignoring superiors. Maybe that’s how the top brass in Washington D.C. does things now? I don’t know. 

Acting-wise I was kind of surprised. Katie Sereika plays a Russian named Eva Kuleshov and nails it. Her acting career doesn’t in any way reflect how good she actually is. We also get a stellar performance out of Arianna Scott as Dr. Linda Murphy who I think can expect quite a few more acting roles moving forward. She pretty much carried this film on the “human side” of things. Eric Roberts has a minimal role in this as Ethan Marcos. Roberts who is 66 now, has been doing mostly b-movies for years, and as of January 2022, has a whopping 77 projects coming out or in pre-production. Yeah, you read that right. The rest of the cast falls into the “just okay” category, which is fine for this kind of movie. 

For kaiju fans, there is very little to get excited about here. While the acting and design work is actually pretty decent for an Asylum film, we really don’t get to see much of what we came for. The final fight scene is absolutely horrendously bad. There are tons of videos you can stream with basement CGI gurus doing better work in a 10 minute short than what we get here. In fact, I can probably just draw a better fight sequence by hand in a few weeks. 

There are some glaring continuity issues, so all these factors start to knock my rating down. As much as I thought the two lead actresses helped this movie out, I can’t give this flick anything higher than a 4 out of 7. Having said that, in the b-movie arena it’s fairly well done. 

Overall this thing is a pretty fun and sometimes funny watch. It bears repeating that you should not make the mistake of believing any reviews coming close to saying this is better than or compares to Legendary’s Monster Verse. It’s not even on the same playing field as those movies and trying to compare the two is an insult to common sense as well as kaiju fans all over the globe.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE ASYLUM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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