Neon Studios presents Apocalypse Cow.
Hmm, how about…
Witness one of the Sundance Film Festival contenders Lord of the Slightly Older Flies.
Hmm, what about…
From acclaimed filmmaker, Alejandro Landes comes Cattle Royale.
Okay, I’m finished with the stupid cow jokes. My apologies.
Fairly new visionary director Alejandro Landes is a gifted individual that we should seriously keep an eye on for the future of cinema. His filmmaking protocol is unmistakably the most admirable property of Monos—a war account pivoting on a group of children and teens who are assigned to carry out solo missions on a mountaintop located in Latin America. Mika Levi–the artist behind the score of Jonathon Glazer’s underrated masterpiece Under the Skin—additionally returns with a new set of tracks for Monos that are arousing enough to get any cinephile pregnant.
But Monos doesn’t have a whole lot to say besides “don’t send children off to war because it’s not going to end pleasantly”—a philosophy that has already been preached finer in films like Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies. It’s a well-made tribute to narratives that we’ve been introduced to before countless times before, however, it suffers from its on-the-nose references and absence of originality which are just too prosaic of traits to make the final product stand strong on its own merits.
I’m sure we can all agree though that Moises Arias (Rico from Hannah Montana) has had a fairly above average post-Disney-Channel career for a…well…Disney Channel star.
Verdict: C+
“Monos” is now playing in select theaters.
Burning the Celluloid 
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