Dank comedy adventure is monstrously good fun

Love and Monsters

WHAT’S not to love about monsters? This post-apocalyptic YA adventure, starring the adorable Dylan O’Brien, takes such a varied and visceral approach to its supposed bad guys that it’s hard not to grin every time the beasts (everyday creepy-crawlies magnified by radiation after an OTT missile strike) waddle gelatinously into frame. Director Michael Matthews has invented a new sub-genre: dank comedy.

Our hero, Joel (O’Brien), is cool

precisely because he’s not very cool. Just as Indiana Jones was honest about his fear of snakes, Joel is honest about his fear of… everything.

Orphaned as a teen by the “monsterpocalypse”, Joel is the only singleton in his colony and spends most of the movie trying to reconnect with his high school sweetheart, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), who’s based in a colony 85 miles away.

Joel, right, is aided in his quest by a dog, and the supporting characters

are good fun. Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), a little girl Joel meets along the way, proves smart and unpredictably feral and talking robot Mav1s says such delightful things that you crave her company long after she’s gone.

Love and Monsters may not be that memorable. But it’s enormously good fun.

⬤ Netflix