Monsters Of Man

''Monsters of Man'' is an Australian science fiction indie film written and directed by Australian cinematographer and director Mark Toia about a robotics team testing a new military robot for the CIA in the Golden triangle hunting drug traffickers that becomes sentient and goes rogue, attacking nearby villagers.

Plot

A robotics company is hired by a corrupt CIA Major (Neal McDonough) trying to position themselves to win a lucrative military contract.

The company illegally airdrops four prototype robots into the middle of the Golden triangle to perform a live field test on unsuspecting drug traffickers. However, a group of volunteer doctors witness the robots going rogue and killing an entire village and become hunted by the robots. What the CIA don't know is that Mason (Brett Tutor), a former Navy SEAL, was living in the village, and seeks revenge on the robots.

Meanwhile, the Robotics team splinters as their CIA handler Boller (Jose Rosete) breaks from the rest of the team, Kroger (David Haverty), Jantz (Jessica Blacmore), as they were told there wouldn't be any killing. As this is happening one of the robots, BR4 (Conrad Pratt) becomes self-aware and actively resists the robotics teams control, now becoming hunted by the other robots as it attempts to connect to the internet to make a digital backup of itself and escape the jungle.

Surviving doctors and villagers led by Mason attempt to both evade and eliminate the robots, while Boller is sent after BR4 to try and mark it for a drone strike, and kill any surviving witnesses. Ultimately BR4 learns the importance of life and activates its self destruct killing Boller and the last operational robot to save the survivors.

Cast

*Neal McDonough as Major
*Brett Tutor as Mason
*Jose Rosete as Boller
*David Haverty as Kroger
*Paul Haapaniemi as Jordan
*Ryan Hough as Jantz
*Ly Ty as Leap
*Ma Rynet as Keala
*Kayli Tran as Tien
*Jessica Blackmore as Fielding
*Jordy Tulleners as Dez
*Tatjana Marjanovic as Wendy
*Conrad K. Pratt as Bao and BR4
*David Samartin as Foster
*Trong Kam as Prak

Production

A passion project of its creator Mark Toia, the film was partially funded by an Indiegogo campaign, however, Toia would self finance the bulk of the movie ( A$1.6 million) from money he made in property investment. This would be Toia's first and only movie, who had been a successful director for commercials in his native Australia. Toia, then 56, stated that the idea for the movie came to him while he was recording a Nescafe commercial in Vietnam and had floated the script for a year in the United States before ultimately deciding to just make the film himself. Toia also stated that ''Monsters of Man'' was a proof of concept that commercial directors can direct feature films, with Toia going out his way to hire commercial veterans for the crew.

Most of the motion capture work for the robots Toia helped develop and as such despite the small budget and indie size, the computer effects where professional quality. Toia stated that if he wasn't so proficient in CGI, it was likely the film would have cost $2 or $3 million more.

BR4, the sentient robot, was designed to be similar to '' Chappie'' in a "not cute sort of way", at one point dissecting a human to better understand the meaning of life. ''Monsters of Man'' would be filmed in Cambodia, and cast locals for the villagers. The bulk of the film was shot in Tahan village in Siem Reap province. There is a mid credits scene that shows BR4 had successfully uploaded itself to the internet and points towards a sequel, however, Toia would die in 2023 following a short-illness.

Release

''Monsters of Man'' would have a short and limited theatrical release before it was made available to stream and on DVD by High Octane Films on December 8, 2020.

Reception

The quality of the CGI used for the robots was praised as being "better than a lot of blockbusters", but with critics saying the movie was longer than it needed to be, and few of the doctors where particularly memorable.

Simon Foster, director of the Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival described the film as "''Robocop'' meets ''Predator''" Foster would select the film to open that years Festival.

Neal McDonough was praised for his role as a villain, adding "star power" to a cast of mostly unknowns. Conrad K. Pratt would be praised for his role as Bao, one of the doctors, and as the man in mocap playing the four robots. Toia also had praise for Ma Rynet, stating that “She is fantastic and I wouldn’t hesitate to put her in another movie if I was to ever shoot one in Cambodia again.”

Toia didn't care if the film made back its budget, saying that "I decided that if I was going to do a movie, I'd just do my own just for more of a therapy, relaxation type thing. And it was therapeutic. Because we funded it ourselves, I didn't have to listen to anyone." ''Mosters of Man'' would top the iTunes charts after its release. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the film was not shown in any other festivals.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Man, Monsters of
2020 films
2020 science fiction action films
2020s Australian films
2020s English-language films
Australian science fiction action films
English-language science fiction action films
Films set in Cambodia