Monster Trucks
Director: Chris Wedge
Stars: Jane Levy, Lucas Till, Rob Lowe
Duration: 104 mins
Class: U
KRS Releasing Ltd
Tripp (Lucas Till) is a high school senior in small-town America who longs for the chance to get away from his unexciting life. A loner by nature, for company Tripp has little more a single mother who loves him, a stepfather he barely gets on with and a distant father he hopes to reconnect with. Tripp spends his free time building a monster truck from bits and pieces of scrapped cars.
However, Tripp’s life takes a turn for the bizarre when an accident at a nearby oil well causes some mysterious beasts to emerge from deep underground. Two of the creatures are taken captive by the oil company... a third finds refuge in Tripp’s garage and the two become unlikely friends.
Nothing unusual about the above, but when it is revealed that the creature in question – named, for want of anything cleverer, Creech – lives on oil (the stuff you find in the ground, not olive or sunflower) and has the ability of powering truck engines (hence the title!) more than a little head-scratching ensues. It’s a premise that stretches credibility somewhat.
Had the story surrounding it had a little more imagination and overall colour, then it would have been easier to suspend disbelief and go along with the ride, but as it is, the screenplay by Derek Connolly (from a story it took three people to write) does very little with the idea, spinning some nonsense about the discovery of new species and the environment within the script’s rather bland dialogue to explain it all away.
All the characters are pretty one-dimensional, giving the actors very little to fuel their performances with
All the characters are pretty one-dimensional, giving the actors very little to fuel their performances with... from Till’s very good-looking, blond, strong silent type Tripp to his peppy classmate Meredith (Jane Levy); with the (mildly) evil scientist who has a change of heart and the sneering henchman in black to add to the stereotypes.
Popular character actors Amy Ryan and Rob Lowe try to add some weight. Yet, the former is in two blink-and-you’ll-miss-her scenes, while the latter just phones in a smarmy villain performance as the oil executive trying to keep the creatures’ presence a secret.
In ways, it has a Disney circa 1970s feel to it, but the old-fashioned here equates to dull. What bit of narrative there is, takes its sweet time to unfold, while the proceedings are peppered with some overwrought – and overlong – car, or rather, truck chases, where the vehicles end up mangled wrecks from which their drivers walk away unscathed.
In this day and age of wonderful family-oriented storytelling at the cinema – where the likes of Disney still dominates the field with Zootropolis, The Jungle Book and Moana, to name but three of the studio’s incredible output this year – a film like Monster Trucks is a bit of an anomaly, with its rather implausible premise, predictable execution and cardboard characters.
Moreover, it’s a little hard to see what audience it is aimed at, what with its rather incompatible mix of good-looking teen protagonists, the truck action on display and the rather childish monster at the heart of the story. That said, the squid-like, giant, yet admittedly cuddly, Creech is probably the best thing about the film.