When Paramount unveiled the first trailer for “Monster Trucks”–a movie that is literally about monsters inside oversized trucks–
the Internet rejoiced with teeth bared. Mockery and jeering were unleashed so vicious and vociferous that months ahead of its release, the studio braced for the family-friendly adventure to bomb spectacularly. But the Internet was wrong. It was smug and quick to judge, deriding the film — admittedly one with a ridiculous premise actually dreamed up by a four-year-old — for daring to be different.
Yet, “Monster Trucks” is a movie the Internet should love. Imaginative and wonderful, it pays unexpected homage to the gloriously odd kids’ movies of the 1990s. Think about the films children grew up loving in that era. Their premises were gleefully stupid. “Encino Man” was about a caveman attending a California high school. “Free Willy” followed a lonely boy as he befriends then frees a killer whale. And “Surf Ninjas” — well, you get the picture. These movies were not made to impress critics, but to kick the imaginations of children into giddy overdrive. And we ate them up for all their strangeness and zeal. “Monster Trucks” doesn’t traffic in the overt nostalgia of allusion shots, dialogue parodies, or Easter Egg-laced set design. Instead, it brilliantly resurrects the sincerity and joy of those movies, never apologizing for its ludicrous premise. (
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