Girl vs. Monster (2012)

Simply Perfect

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Skylar Lewis (Olivia Holt) comes from a family of monster hunters and she doesn't know it. Her parents keeps her home for Halloween but she decides to cut the power to the home alarm. The problem is that power is also cut from the containment vessel and various monsters are released. Family friend Cobb reveals the family secret. With her scared friends Henry and Sadie, she must recapture Deimata who intends to possess her.This Disney movie is a showcase for some of its young stars and is aimed for their young fans. It's inferior in many ways. The writing, the adult actors, the special effects, and the plotting are all second rate in one way or another. Mostly, this relies on the movie's young stars. Olivia Holt is definitely a beauty although she may be better off playing the mean girl. Kerris Dorsey plays the best friend and she may have better dorky innocence to accentuate the leading role. Why not have the mean girl and the sweet girl team up to defeat the monsters? The plot doesn't really make any sense. I don't know why she would go to the party except that it needs to manufacture the situation. It does have the central premise about fear which is very appealing. One must grade on a curve for these kinds of movies.

This came out when I was 10 and I loved it so much, I am going to go re-watch it asap just for some memories of childhood. I would recommend this title to anyone who had children that are into defeating monsters or who are excited by futuristic devices, as this will fulfill their imagination as it definitely did to me. I loved this movie!

The kindest thing you could say about this mess is that the budget was too low so they had to take shortcuts.Unfortunately if you read the credits you will see that this is a 100% Disney Channel product, so you had one of the greatest and most powerful corporations on the planet behind this film, so you can't merely blame the budget.You can however blame some overpaid Disney exec blueskying with his team, saying something like "Halloween is upcoming and everyone knows we OWN that franchise but ever since High School Musical, we also have a musical franchise, so let's kill two birds with one stone and do both at the same time. Now, where do we go for lunch today?" This kind of thinking led to the creation of the SPORK.Nothing is right here -- the writing, the acting, the special effects, the excessive use of colored smoke, easily one of the worst Disney productions of all time.

The pattern I find with a lot of these Disney Channel movies (and shows) is that they usually have a charismatic, talented performer to build around, but the writing is incredibly flimsy. In this case, Olivia Holt's performance wasn't enough to redeem the terrible choices the filmmakers made. Although my elementary age daughter enjoyed it, I had a big problem in that there were almost NO monsters. The title made me think it was going to be like an episode of Buffy with all different kinds of monsters coming at her. Then, the design and costuming of the three villains was so underwhelming that they alone pretty much sucked any interest out for me. Also, you get a lame reworking of Ghostbusters for a story, and some really dismal performances. Sometimes, in spite of these shortcomings, Disney's made for TV movies still somehow turn out to be watchable and fun. I didn't think so this time. It's too bad, because they have some talented kids on their roster, but they don't put nearly as much care into these quickly made productions as they do their theatrical features. These could do better if they really wanted to.