Semi-comic tales of wild adventures which put kids in peril are not among my favorite types of movies (think The Goonies or The Monster Squad).  I know those types of films have their rabid fans — especially for viewers who saw them at a young age — but I find them too exploitive and often too forced, as if the filmmakers are trying too hard.  Certainly some of them succeed, like Gremlins or Super 8 or even E. T. — The Extra-Terrrestrial.  Here, with Monster Summer, we have a movie that sometimes tries too hard and is occasionally stilted, or underwritten, but it is also pretty darned effective.  Sometimes heartfelt, sometimes harrowing, sometimes uplifting; I rather enjoyed this admittedly derivative and slightly frustrating coming-of-age melodrama.

David Henrie’s film focuses upon young Noah (Mason Thames), a high schooler who wants to be a journalist like his late father.  In the small Cape Cod town where they live, however, Noah can’t find the right story to tell.  Then kids he knows suddenly change, losing their personalities almost completely, and Noah begins to wonder if evil has settled into his little corner of the world.  He enlists the help of a reclusive old hermit (Mel Gibson), who turns out to be an ex-detective, and what they learn together is too wild to be believed and too dangerous to be ignored.

I wish the story would hang together a bit better than it does; one character who is crucial early on simply disappears from the narrative for no good reason, for example, and the story’s big red herring is glaringly obvious.  That said, mostly the narrative drives relentlessly forward rather skillfully, even when dropping genre references and in-jokes into the mix.  There are some moments when this PG-13 movie is genuinely unsettling or harrowing, which I appreciated more because I wasn’t expecting them.  What really makes this movie work are the relatable characters of Noah and his young pals as they try to figure out what is going on around them.

Then there is Mel Gibson.  This actor (and sometime director) gets a lot of grief because of his past personal issues, but since his rise to fame almost half a century ago he has never not been a movie star.  He can still command the screen when he wants but in recent years has preferred to melt into these rough-edged character roles and find the moments that make them either redeemable or heroic.  He does that again here; he has a terrific monologue about the tragic fate of his character’s family.  Mel Gibson is a terrific actor and ought to be working in higher profile projects than this one, which definitely benefits from his presence.  I like Monster Summer, despite its flaws and its occasional clichés, and I’ll be seeing it again in the future.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  21 November 2025.