Monster Trucks (2016) Review!!!

Synopsis – Looking for any way to get away from the life and town he was born into, Tripp (Lucas Till), a high school senior, builds a Monster Truck from bits and pieces of scrapped cars. After an accident at a nearby oil-drilling site displaces a strange and subterranean creature with a taste and a talent for speed, Tripp may have just found the key to getting out of town and a most unlikely friend.

My Take – What do I say about a film whose own production studio already had $115 million write-down months before its release? It takes a brave or a foolhardy studio to launch a new feature film aimed at kids into this crowded market especially one that comes with no long tail of name recognition to support it. It isn’t based on a beloved TV show of the 1990s, it isn’t inspired by a successful series of books or comics and it isn’t a remake of some dimly remembered classic of the 1970s. Yet, one must admire the sheer audacity behind Paramount’s injudicious film, mainly as it was conceived by a studio executive’s four-year-old son (no joke), and It shouldn’t surprise many of you to know that the executive who greenlit this one supposedly no longer works for Paramount. I’m actually quite surprised Chris Wedge, the director who gave us the first Ice Age and Robots giving us his first live action family feature. Now it might have looked good on paper and could have possibly been better as an animated feature and not a buddy sci-fi action-comedy where a guileless-yet-stubborn-and-moody small-town loner teen/car played by a fully-grown 26-year-old Lucas Till, stumbles upon a recently-unearthed subterranean squid-like creature, therefore remaking a well known classic for the current generation. It’s a loopy, baffling film, and an easy source of ridicule, but to be honest, it’s not all bad, really. In this film’s defense, it has a cheesy, cute, and the ridiculousness of a family film and the presence of mind to steal from the best. Just switch the adorable alien from E.T. (1982) with an oil guzzling tentacled stress ball from beneath the surface of the earth, and Amblin Entertainment might just have cause to sue.

The story follows a high school student Trip (Lucas Till) works at a junkyard to save up for his dream to simply leave the simple town of North Dakota where he lives with his mother Cindy (Amy Ryan) and her boyfriend sheriff Rick (Barry Pepper). Meanwhile at a nearby oil drilling site, an underground water system is discovered that also unleashes a monster of some kind. In order to prevent the press or the state government from finding out about the newly found underground riverbed & illegalize the area for oil refining, the owner of the company Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) orders for the creature to be found. However, the creature finds his way to the junkyard & is discovered by Trip who he names Creech. The squid-like monster turns out to be playful, like a kid version of its unknown species. Trip also sees that Creech like to hide out in a truck that he’s been working on, and learns that the oil drinking creature loves speed, and it can power his truck just like an engine could. He and fellow student Meredith (Jane Levy) manage to out run the oil companies security firm when they come looking for the creature and Tripp makes a bunch of adjustments to his truck so that Creech can make high jumps, wall climbing, and pretty much anything to make it a monster truck. It’s a silly plot for a silly film but is too farfetched and weak with too many plot holes in surprised the film stayed together. Here’s the deal with this film: It has no pretensions about itself whatsoever, nor does it consider itself high art in the slightest. Does that make it good? Not necessarily, but it makes it more enjoyable and appealing than you might think. As mentioned before, the premise is basically E.T. meets The Water Horse by way of Smokey and the Bandit, and it accepts the unburdened chance to relish in its delusional optimism quite often. It’s not a film made for condensing adults, snotty teenagers or baffled senior citizens. It’s made for that child, who has no regard for logic, sense or plausibility and wants to see an absolutely ridiculous plot about a literal monster truck unfold before him/her on the big screen. They’ll likely be bouncing up-and-down in their seats the whole time, and they’ll find a lot to love here. I will say the film is cute, to see a friendly creature that Tripp tries to help. From the moments of him trying to customize his truck for it to fit in and so he can have full control of the truck with Tripp and Meredith being the passengers in a crazy ride especially, when they are being in a car chase with henchmen Burke (Holt McCallany) and his team. Being in a car chase in a small town can be ridiculous with the creature able to have the truck leap onto walls and rooftops. Director Chris Wedge made this chase seem like he was playing around with toy trucks and using his imagination on some ridiculous action scenes. The film also has the presence of mind to include a rollicking hook to its second rate story. Our monster, Creech makes it a habit to hide in our leading man’s scrap-heap pickup truck. A habit he gained while avoiding capture from a nefarious oil company looking to cover up any evidence of a looming eco-disaster. From that point forward it’s a Ratatouille (2008)-type scenario where driver and monster work together, gleefully off-roading towards the film’s inevitable conclusion.

Recycling through predigested pop culture makes this film seems indebted to Amblin films of the ’80s, by way of the boy-and-his-car riff on those same films Michael Bay half-assedly performed in the first Transformers. But the true reference point here may really be any ’90s-era “extreme” ephemera. When Tripp holds his red soda like it’s an ice-cold beer, it probably isn’t actually Mountain Dew Code Red, but it might as well be. The film tries to have it both ways with its hero, portraying him as an outcast yearning to escape his sleepy small town whenever he’s not inspiring pants of admiration from Meredith, or Sam (Tucker Albrizzi), a younger kid who idolizes him. If anything, Tripp should have even more fans, hoping that he can buy them alcohol or possibly get them an internship. Screenwriter Derek Connolly shrewdly uses archetypes for many characters, while also leaving room for modest surprises. Motivations may not be complex exactly, but they bear a satisfying resemblance to actual human behavior. The special effects strike an admirable balance between the cutesy and the creepy. The creature design for Creech is somewhere between cute and just plain ugly. The toothy, floppy, bubbler-y biology blunder isn’t necessarily beautiful by any normal convention, but there’s something about its enthusiastic smile and sincere, sparklingly red peepers that’s hard to outright dismiss. It isn’t pretty on the eye, but it can sometimes slip into your heart. The CG used to bring it to awkward life isn’t that bad either. It’s cartoony, but in a good way, and the fact that it’s superimposed onto every single frame isn’t quite as distracting as one might rightfully assume. Though it’s wonky, wobbly and completely weird, like your dad’s beaten-up truck, it gets to its destination in bumpy fashion. The route might be predictable, clunky and devoid of intelligence or reason, but it’s not a boring travel. Rather, it’s an inspired, slaphappy one and one that surprisingly — and sometimes endearingly — feels like a blast from the past. Like the stupid, overzealous adolescent-centered titles from the ’80s, ’90s and early ’00s. More importantly, Wedge uses the monster-in-a-truck conceit as a springboard for some imaginative chase sequences. With Creech inside, Tripp’s truck can jump, tilt and even climb walls. Hedge shoots these sequences carefully, so that we always understand where Tripp is in relation to his pursuers. Camera placement and editing are coherent, not chaotic. It doesn’t go far, but at the same time, it’s not the worst ride in the world. The acting was decent. As the miscast teen, Lucas Till’s performance was forgettable, while Jane Levy was okay as an awkward teen. Amy Ryan, Danny Glover and Frank Whaley were forgettable in their small roles. Thomas Lennon was alright. Rob Lowe was difficult to take seriously. Barry Pepper as an obsessed with his car Sheriff was entertaining. On the whole, ‘Monster Trucks’ is a flat, misguided, laughable, vaguely likable film that isn’t going to be appreciated anytime soon, but doesn’t deserve to be venomously hated either.