Monsters (Gareth Edwards, 2010)

The only redeeming facet of this movie is that it occasionally has beautiful pictures of a river that remind of the Amazon in Aguirre, only shot on a DSLR. While it never approaches that film's most memorable moments, it does, at least, remind the viewer of just how awe-inspiringly beautiful the lush green jungle river can be. But those moments last perhaps 2 minutes in a 90 minute feature. The rest is a blanket of naively un-self-aware pandering to the converted mixed with yet another sticky representation of people of color as literal aliens. Why is there more than one movie like this? Wouldn't it only take one to convince pretty much anyone that this is actually a TERRIBLE IDEA? Like, no matter how sound your intentions are, this will always come off as condescending and just, like, unspeakably gross. But even if you manage to ignore that, the ham-fisted explications of the theme of aliens as metaphor for Latin-American workers work only as self-congratulation. There's nothing compelling about two of the most boring white people ever conceived uttering lines like, "I thought I'd be happy to be home, but now all I want to do is go back" and depicting America building a giant, Great Wall-like structure to keep the aliens out. Like, ha ha, get it? This is what crazy tea party America will do if you let it! But the aliens, they're actually really beautiful and peaceful and amazing if you get to know them. I don't know, there really isn't anything to say -- except, at least, that Gareth Edwards made a fairly handsome movie for however much the probably low budget was. Too bad about the writing, editing, acting, everything else.