Movie Thoughts: Elli and Her Monster Team (2024)

• Released: June 27th, 2024
• Directed by: Piet De Rycker, Jens Møller, Jesper Møller
• Running time: 1h 26m
• Rating 2/5

Synopsis

A ghost named Elli has to save her fellow monsters when evil drones start capturing their kind. On her journey she's joined by a Sasquatch obsessed with talent shows, a Frankenstein-like boy and a vampire with a flair for the dramatic.

My Thoughts

Not a movie I was looking forward to seeing or anything, but I figured it'd make for a nice Halloween-themed review. 

And the movie is...unsurprisingly, not very good. I don't hate it or anything, but it just felt kinda cheap and cookie-cutter and just not very engaging. 

The characters are pretty decent though. Elli is a fine and likable heroine and her relationship with Krnaf was pretty wholesome. I kinda wish we got more depth in the relationship between Eli and her uncle-figure, the Chamberlain, though.

The rest of the movie just feels, well, cheap, like I said. It feels like everyone behind this movie was just putting in the bare minimum of effort to make a decent-at-most family film. Not saying that that's the case, but it's what the end result feels like. Cheap, generic and not interesting or very engaging or emotionally resonant.

However, I will give this movie credit for two more things. One, the morals of teamwork, found family and anti-AI. Those are good morals to teach, and the movie handles them pretty decently. Second, I like how the racism against monsters by humans in this movie doesn't have a single evil individual behind it (cough, Zootopia, cough), but is rather a systemic issue that humanity needs to overcome. Sure, there is a villain in the form of the AI in the end, but the racism on humanity's part can't be pinned on one individual or small group of individuals. And throughout the movie humans grow to overcome their biases and better themselves. Which feels like it at least respects its audience a bit rather than giving the film a simple and boring villain to pin all racism on.

So yeah, not a good movie, but it does have some mildly enjoyable elements. I didn't hate it or anything. Just wish it was better.