But... Try as I might to spin this in a positive direction, as I am trying to at least do something other than complain (in life, in posts), but this movie.
OK, we can at least be neutral in the re-cap. Middle class kid gets into posh boarding school where immediately he is tossed into the section reserved for outcasts, and assigned to being the roommate of class weirdo Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield). Michael Sheen is the oblivious Head Master funding the school via fracking, happening just on the other side of the border wood. Pegg is the oblivious teacher with Robbie playing his GF Skype-ing in her performance via Pegg's laptop. Frost is the oblivious eco-protester / drug dealer camped near the fracking site, with a tragic connection to the school's past. You get the idea of how the adults are cast?
Damn, failed at even that.
The first hour of the movie just blunders through the standard tropes of boarding schools. There are rich kids, "poor" kids, weird kids, rituals and feeble attempts at commentary on class structure. I kept on wondering when they were going to get to the actual monsters of the monster movie, but they spent most of the time setting the setting. Character development? No, not really. Expansive plot? No, not really.
When we finally get to the point of the movie, its pretty familiar fare. Monsters emerge, kids run, bad (aka rich) kids get eaten, adults get picked off one by one, until the rag tag bunch of main characters (including one rich girl the main character has a crush on) find a way to defeat the monsters and escape (barely, always barely) with their lives. Yawn.
Opportunity wasted.
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