Monsters of Man Parent Guide

A group of elite scientists, Kroger (David Haverty), Fielding (Jessica Blackmore), and Jantz (Ryan Hough), have been shipped off to a remote town in the Golden Triangle on a navigational test of their new military robots. Under the watchful and impatient supervision of CIA agent Boller (Jose Rosete), the team parachutes the robots into the jungle – right on top of a village controlled by local drug lords and serving as home base for American volunteer physicians trying to vaccinate local kids. But a rough landing means one of the robots has lost its control module, and without the AI limitations imposed by the module, it’s going to kill indiscriminately until it gets what it wants. The only real protection the villagers and doctors have is Mason (Brett Tutor), a former Navy SEAL helping build housing in the area. But the odds are against them, and the CIA wants to eliminate any witnesses to the failed test…

Everyone is familiar with the Predator franchise, right? Terrifying alien stalking the jungle, going toe-to-toe with some muscle-bound maniac, removing human skin….ring any bells? Good. Monsters of Man is that but with inferior screenwriting, and four killer robots instead of one killer alien. Put Arnie’s face on them and this does double-duty as a Terminator rip-off. It’s not a good sign when you’re losing a screenwriting contest with a Schwarzenegger movie that features dialogue like “I ain’t got time to bleed”, but here we are.

As with the films it so obviously steals from, this movie has violence and profanity problems. What’s even more annoying is that the film wants you to believe it’s this violent for some legitimate character development. Ah, of course, I should have known that the broken robot removing someone’s heart, brain, and face were just a misguided moment in its journey of self-discovery and actualization! What a fool I have been to attribute that to stupid screenwriting, lazy directing, and self-absorbed delusions of talent. There’s also a whole mess of cussing, but I probably missed some after about an hour since by that point the movie had given me the equivalent of a serious concussion and it was getting pretty hard to count. There is, on the other hand, functionally no sexual content, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

There is no earthly reason for this exercise in high-school creative writing to be over two-hours long, but this movie is clear evidence that the universe is a cold and uncaring place, and we’re stuck with it anyway. This uninspired collection of clichés and expired canned dialogue is just about the worst way I can imagine spending 130 minutes of my life. You just don’t get that time back.