The Monkey | Film Review

 

After being plagued throughout their childhood by a murderous toy monkey, adult twin brothers Hal and Bill (Theo James) reunite to destroy the killer toy.

I'd been looking forward to this one! I didn't love the trailer, as it looked a bit more outlandish and comedic than I would have guessed from the description, but I was still really excited to see it.

This was an interesting film. It wasn't exactly what I expected, and there were things about it that I didn't like, but overall it was a fun experience.

I really liked the opening scene. I think it set the tone of the whole film well, gave us a hint of what we were in for and allowed excitement to build.

One thing that threw me off was the split between the past and present.

For a while, I was really enjoying seeing the past as a prequel for what the present characters would be dealing with. But as the film continued, I realised the past scenes were given as much importance as the present.

And yes, I understand why it was done like this, but I didn't love it. I wanted the past to give us a flavour of the story, but then ultimately stay in the past.

And because this section lasted at least half of the movie, when the present storyline began, I felt less able to connect to the characters.

There were some really interesting death scenes throughout, and while I felt like these moved way too quickly, it was clear that this was a stylistic choice, and it did work well with the tone of the film. I just wanted them to last a little bit longer.

I haven't mentioned the title character yet, but the way the monkey was used was one of the most interesting things. The metaphor for grief was done so so well, and this was helped by the writing and how great the actors were. If anything, this could have been leaned into a bit more, but I liked that most of it was quite subtle.

Overall, I really appreciated a lot of what this film did. I'm not totally sure if I liked it, but I definitely had fun!

4.5/10