Monsters (2010)

Pretty straightforward 90 minute film. Set "years after most other monster movies end, when people aren't running and screaming, but life is going on",as described by director Gareth Edwards, it's the story of photojournalist Caulder and his boss's daughter Sam as they make their way through the dangerous infected zone to get back to the US after being trapped in Mexico.

While it's set in a world where gargantuan aliens have taken over a large swathe of land, it's not a film about alien invasion. The monsters themselves are really just the necessary complication to bring the two protagonists together. That's not to say the monsters are irrelevant, far from it, but to put it in a rather cliched way: it's not a film about monsters it's a film about people. In particular, the two stars, who share such a chemistry that you'd think they were husband and wife (they are now). There's a lot of subtlety and rawness in the acting I think, probably due to the way the film was scripted (or rather not scripted).

The production's quite interesting in and of itself too. The film was shot entirely on location in Central America, with Edwards and a crew of 7 travelled around shooting, filling in most of the parts with non-actor locals. Then there's the fact that all the CGI was done by Edwards himself, literally in his bedroom, with some standard software. Pretty neat little story.

All in all, it's a pretty good film. I hesitate to call it beautiful, a word I usually attribute to films that are brilliant, because this film's not a classic masterpiece. It's a really good film, with some element that I can't quite place that makes it beautiful, without making it great.