"Jaw dropping" and "thrilling"?
Whoever wrote those reviews definitely wasn't watching the same film I saw last night. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I was expecting something a little more action packed and was a little disappointed when it turned out to be quite slow moving. For a film called Monsters there certainly isn't a lot of them; ironically, the film is not so much about the monsters themselves, and more about the impact of the monsters' presence on the surrounding communities.
Gareth Edwards (although set to direct a revamped Godzilla next year) has taken the sci-fi/alien genre and turned it on its head, making it less about the action and more about the quiet, inner turmoils of the two lead characters and those that they encounter. In most action films the audience is numbed with bangs and crashes for an hour and half and then the film swiftly ends before the viewers have to bear any witness to the emotional consequences of the events on all characters involved, but it's almost as if Monsters picks up where these bangs and crashes end. Instead, Edwards uses beautiful but subtle cinematography and a slow-burning build of emotion to tell a modest and nuanced story of two people just trying to find their way home.
