A Monster Calls - Movie Review!

Who's In It?

Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson, and Sigourney Weaver


What's It About?

As a boy's mother is dying of cancer, a giant tree monster promises him help if he listens to three tails, and tells the monster the fourth.

Any Good?

I think my enjoyment of the film depended on the fact I had context to really show it's heart; the book and film were written by Patrick Ness, finished from the first chapter written by Siobhan Dowd before she died of cancer.

Without context, I found that the conversations were INCREDIBLY rushed. I loved how Liam Neeson was written and voice-acted, but when he says sentences that are at most 5 words long it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. 

I did really enjoy most of the performances, with Felicity Jones giving hope to Rogue One and Liam Neeson as the awesome monster - but AGAIN with the fantastic child actor in Lewis McDougall, is it their year or something? I did feel let down by Sigourney Weaver though - it was like she was focusing so hard on her accent that her performance fell a bit flat.

The effects were impressive with the animation for the monster being FANTASTIC, with his face mapped perfectly and Liam Neeson's mo-cap of sitting down actually looked like an old monster doing it.

While I did find the film was a bit flat with it's short dialogue, the performances really pushed it forward and context helped it along even more so. While I thought the film was decent, it REALLY made me want to read the book and see what the dialogue is like without being Hollywood-ified.

Rating: