Monos (2019)
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Monos Movie Review
Monos is a 2019 Colombian war drama film directed by Alejandro Landes. It’s a film that looks good, but is narratively quite uninspired.
On a faraway mountaintop, eight teenage guerrillas with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Playing games and initiating cult-like rituals, the children run amok in the jungle and disaster strikes when the hostage tries to escape.
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That’s the plot here, and needless to say, it is highly unoriginal. Basically, it is a Colombian modern-day version of ‘Lord of the Flies’, but it lacks that novel’s strong characterization, emotion and potency in terms of memorable plot points.
The characters here are rather underdeveloped. The actors are fine, especially good for the slight material that they got, but simply none of the characters got his or her proper due. Most are left undercooked simply because there are too many of them. As a group, they are okay, but individually, they all suffered.
I also found the lack of details regarding this war, and the missions that these kids got rather frustrating. It’s ambiguous and mysterious, but not in a good way. Yes, there are some emotional moments to be had here, and also some very strong adventurous elements as the film deals with natural obstacles really well. But I did not care about the characters so ultimately I lost interest.
Monos has great technical aspects. It is well directed, overall well edited and paced while also having some fine dialogue, and some very strong imagery. The cinematography is excellent, and it makes use of its natural surroundings superbly with some highly artistic shots and takes.
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It’s a film that has to be appreciated on a technical level, but simply there is nothing here in terms of story. It does explore some themes, but only on surface-level. As a result, the film is quite overrated, and even the adaptation of ‘Lord of the Flies’ is better to watch than this uncreative flick.
Monos looks great owing to terrific cinematography and a couple of rather artistic shots. The film’s technically proficient, but narratively speaking, it is one slim, highly unoriginal story that is basically a discount version of ‘Lord of the Flies’. You are much better off reading that book or watching its screen adaptations than seeing this uninspired flick.
