Flying Monkeys

I have seen worse movies but I'm hard pressed to name them, Netflix truly entered Amazon level mince films with this bottom of the barrel crapfest.

I have seen actual monkeys throwing faeces that was better than this, it's not funny just sad, don't watch it.

Attempting to make up for his continual absence, a man's purchase of a monkey for his daughter turns out to be a form of demonic monkey-creature that begins terrorizing the townspeople and must band together with a group of hunters to take the creatures down.

This turned out to be a solid, middle-of-the-road offering that had some rather fun stuff about it. One of the better elements here is the fact that the opening shock jump doesn't kill off everyone it comes in contact with, which is a pleasant surprise as well as the film's origin story for the creatures which is far better than expected and definitely has some good elements for later use coming out of it. As well, we've got a couple fine action moments with the multitude of creatures swarming over their victims in town at several big scenes, and the finale at the house is quite exciting. This is still plagued with the usual Sci-Fi Channel atrocious CGI and gore, but as well there's another flaw in the treatment of the guardians' search for the creature who seem shoehorned into the story without really doing much and their quest at starting at the front of the chain of possession halfway through the movie doesn't make much sense. Overall, this one wasn't all that terrible though.

Rated R: Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

I'll be honest in saying that I was expecting to hate Flying Monkeys, as with a few exceptions SyFy's movies are terrible. Flying Monkeys is not a great movie, far from it in my view, but you can do with far worse. Admittedly, the dialogue flows poorly and reeks of cheese, the gore is very artificial-looking and trivialises the attacks rather than adding to them and the demon hunters and their subplot felt shoehorned in and like it was just padding out the running time. There also for me seemed to be too much emphasis on anti-gun control, I liked that there was a commentary but at the end of the day it felt overstated. However, while nothing particularly is top-drawer in Flying Monkeys there were assets that did seem better done here than in other SyFy movies.

The movie is shot and edited reasonably competently, and while the CGI effects are not going to win any awards and look a little goofy they are proportioned quite well and at least they don't look like they only took five-ten minutes to make. The attacks are quite nail-biting and inventive, more so than usual actually, and the finale is exciting. The father-daughter relationship is something we have seen many times, but was quite touching here. The story of course is weird with the feel of two or more stories rolled into one, also ones that together don't particularly mesh well so the movie did feel muddled at times, but it is not too predictable and it didn't ever bore me. The music and sound effects fit with the atmosphere quite nicely and don't overbear the drama.

We've seen these type of characters before, but while not all were necessary they weren't annoying. Even Wang had his moments. And who cannot love Skippy, he is very cute though he is equally convincing as a demonic monkey. The direction shows a director with more experience in this genre and one who knows how to keep things moving without it getting too overly-serious or overly-comical. The acting is better than average, Maika Monroe and Vincent Ventresca especially were quite good. Overall, weird but quite entertaining. A great movie it isn't, but I- and coming from someone who dislikes most of SyFy's output intensely - cannot bring myself to hate it. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Flying Monkeys (2013)

** (out of 4)

The latest from SyFy centers on a father (Vincent Ventresca) who is late to his daughter's (Maika Monroe) graduation so as a make- up gift he buys her a monkey. What he doesn't know is that this monkey is actually a shape shifter that can grow wings as well as grow in size and likes to eat humans. FLYING MONKEYS is pretty much what you'd expect from a movie that shows up on SyFy but I think for the most part it's slightly entertaining and ranks as one of the better things to turn up on the channel at nine o'clock. I know that's not saying too much since there's a lot of bad movies on there but this one here actually works on a few levels. For starters, I thought both Ventresca and Monroe were good in their parts and they certainly helped keep the film interesting and moving along. I thought both of them fit their roles just fine and their performances were certainly better than you normally see in a film like this. The supporting players, while not perfect, were also entertaining in their roles. I can't say the father-daughter subplot was all that great but it's certainly better than what most "B" movies offer up. Another thing that actually works are the CGI monkeys. Yes, the thought of a flying monkey is rather silly but I still thought the special effects were better than most. For starters, unlike so many movies, this one here didn't try to make the monsters bigger than Godzilla (remember the channel's BIGFOOT?) and instead of making them look fake, they actually went the extra mile to make them look realistic or at least as realistic as a flying monkey can be. The CGI wasn't over-the-top nor was it so bad that you couldn't believe what you were watching. First-time director Robert Grasmere has worked on several big films so he's obviously been around talent. I think he actually did a good job considering what the material was. Of course, this is still a SyFy "B" movie so I'd be interesting in seeing what he does from here as well as the cast members.

For an original SyFy Channel movie, then "Flying Monkeys" wasn't as bad as it could have been. Let's face it, SyFy Channel do spew out a fair share of questionable movies in a steady pace. But every now and then they do manage to deliver something that isn't as campy, cheesy or unwatchable as the rest of their movies. "Flying Monkeys" wasn't one of their greatest movies, true, but it was enjoyable even though it was cheesy.

The story in "Flying Monkeys" is about Joan (played by Maika Monroe) who graduates from high school. Although her dad James (played by Vincent Ventresca) promised to attend, he arrived late. And to make amends for his late-comings, then he buys his daughter an exotic pet monkey, which she names Skippy. It turns out that the cute monkey turns into a demonic winged killer monkey at night and wrecks havoc on the town. A couple of Asian hunters are chasing after the monkey to kill it before it can further its evil. And the trick is, that the monkey can only be killed by weapons that were blessed in old times. If killed by conventional means, the monkey parts and becomes two.

Storywise, then "Flying Monkeys" is as standard as these type of movies come. But still, it was enjoyable, because there was a good pace to the story, and there was just something profound cheesy to the movie which made it more fun to watch.

The acting was quite good, and that helped lift up the enjoyment of the movie. Even the monkey that played Skippy was doing a convincing job.

I nearly toppled over when they showed a scene that was supposed to be from Hong Kong. That was from mainland China somewhere, and not Hong Kong. I lived there for four years and am familiar with the scenery, the street signs, cabs etc., and that was not Hong Kong. But hey, at least they had the continent right. It was an effort, but a goofy mistake to make.

As for the CGI effects; well, they were there and they served their purpose. However, don't expect to be dazzled by multi-million dollar Hollywood CGi effects, because that is not the case.

"Flying Monkeys" is a fun movie to watch, it is predictable and generic, yes, but then again, so are many movies in the killer animal genre - if there is such a genre.

4 out of 10 stars from me. Fun, campy, predictable but still enjoyable.