What if “monsters trucks” actually meant—wait for it—that there were monsters in the trucks? Apparently Monster Trucks was developed from an idea by the 4-year-old son of a Paramount exec—shocking, I know—and yet a monster in a truck is the least ridiculous thing in a story that is often illogical and frequently hugely problematic. Maybe the fact that this is “for kids” excuses the absurd plot about a North Dakota oil drill unleashing a family of tentacle-y underground sea monsters—a species of megafauna previously undiscovered in many decades of oil prospecting—that just so happen to take a super-quick liking to using truck chassis as wheelchairs, like the vintage pickup that high-school senior Tripp (Lucas Till) is restoring. But it’s not cool that the adults actually in charge of this movie crafted it as a sort of last-gasp romance of American environmental narcissism—yes, we are using up all the oil, try and stop us!—that fetishizes gas-guzzlers, or that it includes monster-in-a-truck shenanigans involving outrageously dangerous driving and massive criminal damage. You know, for kids. By MaryAnn Johanson