an A MONSTER CALLS musing

The trailers for this made me tear up, so I was looking forward to letting this movie hit all of my feels. It was definitely a result of my extremely high expectations that I didn’t find this moving at all.

The movie follows a boy whose mother is dying of some sort of illness, and calls upon a monster to help him get through it. Real uplifting stuff. And yes, it gets emotional, but it feels so forced and contrived that it just didn’t hit me in the ways I thought it would or wanted it to. There are great stories told by the monster, but their true meanings in the end weren’t as imaginative as I thought they would be.

That isn’t to say this movie has its bright spots. The boy, Lewis MacDougal, has a great future ahead of him, Toby Kebbell is excellent as usual, and I’d love to just have Liam Neeson’s voice narrate everything I do. The animated sequences and the look of the monster and its movements look fantastic, as well.

Overall, A MONSTER CALLS just doesn’t work for me. Lots of people were sobbing in my theater, and I wanted to join them; it seemed to be an older crowd and I thought maybe in a few years I can revisit this and find a deeper meaning and connection to this movie. I wanted so badly to love this movie, but I just refused to let myself let go. Maybe that will be my fourth tale.

Rating: WHY DID I WATCH THIS?

(refer to my rating system here)