THE STORY – When a mysterious force begins to disrupt their big summer fun, Noah and his friends team up with a retired police detective to embark on a monstrous adventure to save their island.
THE CAST – Mason Thames, Julian Lerner, Abby James Witherspoon, Noah Cottrell, Nora Zehetner, Patrick Renna, Lorraine Bracco & Mel Gibson
THE TEAM – David Henrie (Director); Cornelius Uliano & Bryan Schulz (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 97 Minutes
“Monster Summer” is the kind of film where the title tells you everything you need to know about it: that it’s set during summer and there will be monsters. It also sets itself up for a lot of easy, real-life monster jokes, given that it stars Mel Gibson. But, problematic celebrities aside, the film still never manages to rise to the level of the 80s and 90s movies it’s aping. It’s pitched at the type of viewer that watches “Hocus Pocus” every Halloween or has a poster of “The Goonies” on their college dorm wall but doesn’t have half of the charm or joy of those imperfect but enjoyable movies.
It’s the summer of 1997 in Martha’s Vineyard, and although it’s known for being a vacation destination for tourists, the island has its share of permanent residents. Noah (Mason Thames) is one of them; he’s a young boy with dreams of being a scoop-chasing reporter. In the meantime, he’s relegated to trying to find an exciting story in his ostensibly peaceful town. The arrival of a mysterious tenant (Lorraine Bracco) who intends to stay with him and his mother coincides with a series of escalating attacks on children, leading Noah to believe that supernatural forces may be responsible. He teams up with an unlikely ally — Mr. Carruthers (Gibson), an older hermit who’s been the subject of unbecoming local gossip — to try and save his town.
Despite being a decidedly supporting character, Gibson’s problematic presence looms large over the film. And, while some may understandably want to avoid the movie because of his presence, those who watch “Monster Summer” likely won’t be too distracted by him. He’s sturdy and confident on camera, but it’s hard to call the performance anything close to captivating. Similarly, Bracco delivers appropriately enjoyable work, although her small character doesn’t allow her the ability to invest much of her natural charisma into the part. Still, her reliable presence is welcome. Of the child actors who populate the film, the best performance comes from Julian Lerner as Noah’s friend Eugene. Lerner has an incredible emotional range for an actor so young, and the moments where his character is in distress are genuinely upsetting due to his emotive abilities.
The film is an apparent attempt to capture the nostalgic energy of the adventure-thrillers aimed at children that were consistently churned out in the latter two decades of the 20th century, although “Monster Summer” is nowhere near as fun as most of them. It features far too much exposition and too many diversions away from the central mystery, which weighs the whole thing down. And, were it not for the fact that the film opens with a timestamp, there’s very little in the production design, costumes, or general filmmaking style that brings viewers back to the 90s. It’s merely nostalgic in energy and implication rather than content. The most successful throwback element is the use of some charmingly cheesy makeup effects on the villain toward the end of the film, but by then, it’s too little too late.
“Monster Summer” should’ve been an easy pitch to an audience all too happy to look back at their childhood, but it fails to recapture that warm feeling of the past. It seems satisfied to merely tell the audience, “This is a throwback,” and hopefully that will suffice, rather than actually putting any sort of nostalgic energy into any part of the film itself.
