Horst_In_Translation Review of Monster Roll

Monster Roll (2012)

The comedy factor is not good enough even for this minimal runtime

[4/10 · 22 January 2018]

"Monster Roll" is an American English-language 5-minute short film from 2012, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year already. The writer and director is Dan Blank, a prolific visual effects artist who worked on some blockbusters too and usually in his films in charge he focused on animation more, but here we got a live action film. It is chefs vs creatures as the city of Los Angeles gets attacked by gigantic sea creatures and it's up to a bunch of sushi chefs, some of them looking like sumo ringers, to save the place and maybe the planet. They made the thing look a bit like a trailer, but it was probably too long for that and honestly I must say I'd probably not watch a full feature film based on this premise as it gets old really quickly here in terms of comedy during these five minutes (plus one minute credits) already and sadly stops being funny as quickly as it starts being funny. It's not a failure though, but from a pretty experienced multi-talented crew member like Blank I must say I expected better here. The good news is it doesn't look cheap or anything. But yeah, for me, it is not good enough for a thumbs-up and positive recommendation. Watch something else instead.