When someone goes to see a children’s movie they usually expect three things: an unbelievable plot, cheesy jokes, and excitement. “Monster Trucks” only manages to hit one of the three categories. The movie certainly had an unbelievable plot, with monsters that drink oil and can serve as the engine of a car, but the attempted humor and excitement falls flat.

“Monster Trucks” stars Lucas Till as a high school senior named Tripp who desperately wants to get out of his town. Tripp is at the junkyard when he gets an unexpected visitor. Creech is an oil eating octopus-orca hybrid, who got lost when the oil company blew up his nest. The CEO of the company, Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe), frantically searches for the “monster” so he can exterminate all of his species because they would not be allowed to drill where the monster nest is if the rest of the world finds out about it.  

Further research proves that Creech’s species is actually intelligent and feel emotions. Tripp devises a way for Creech to get inside the truck and be the engine, comparing driving the “monster truck” to riding a horse. From there, it becomes Tripp and his school tutor Meredith’s job to bring Creech home and save the nest.

The CGI was decent, but there was nothing we haven’t seen before. “Monster Trucks” reminded me of “Transformers” when they were rapidly driving in the dark. Granted, it wasn’t as intense as “Transformers,” but the element of cars having human-like emotions was still present.

While the movie was cute, it lacked something that a children’s movie needs to be successful: excitement. The end was certainly thrilling enough, but the middle had moments where it failed to capture my attention, as well as the attention of the kids in the theater. The long strings of dialogue and slow moments do not belong in this type of movie.

There weren’t a lot of well-known actors in the movie, other than Rob Lowe who wasn’t in a lot of scenes. The rest of the cast weren’t necessarily bad, but there were a lot of scenes in the beginning when the emotions of the characters feel fake, like when Tripp had a conversation with his mom on his porch. It was honestly laughable.

Overall, “Monster Trucks” was a weird movie idea that didn’t work out the way the producers intended it to. The goal was to create a captivating movie for younger audiences to enjoy, but the movie turned out to be boring. However, less dialogue and more excitement wouldn’t have been enough to turn it around.

Rating: C-