As moviemakers, MTV isn't really a name you'd go to for high class entertainment. And because the network decided to cut back music videos even more on their programming (errr, it is called "Music Television" isn't it?) they started to make a handful of custom made movies to air on the station. Unfortunately someone decided that 1950's giant monster movies would make a good subject matter and we're stuck with this decidedly tiresome spoof that contains giant bugs, lots of self promotion (Hell, the movie's premise couldn't be more obvious a commercial!), and Carmen Electra.

After his bratty sister secretly enters him in an MTV contest, Josh (Daniel Letterle) is declared the winner and gets to head-off to a remote tropical island to party down and get to meet-up with Carmen Electra and see her perform a really bad song. Well it seems the island is also infested with giant, mutated bugs and they seem to hate Electra's song just as much as the viewer as about halfway through her breathy sing-song she's swept away by an enormous flying ant.

It's here that Josh throws away his annoyance at being tricked into going (after all, him and Carmen have similar music taste!) and decides to try and save Carmen from the creature that flew her off to the giant mountain smack dab in the middle of the island. Also signing up for the voyage are a handful of his friends and a wannabe "Vee-Jay" and her cameraman who want to record the quest for posterity sake.

Soon enough they're tromping through the wilderness and along the way they run into various oversized creatures including a piranha man, a pair of huge praying mantis, and a giant spider before being befriended by scientist Dr. Harryhausen (Adam West, saddled with a pretty unfunny "homage" character name) who explains the island was the location of government testing.

By this point the viewer has become quite bored by the goings-on and while Monster Island is pretty harmless stuff it's quite a drag. Aimed at an audience who've probably never even seen the 50's movies it's spoofing, this is packed with purposely cornball effects and smirky humour which for a little while is bearable until you realize the people behind it have absolutely no respect for the movies they're making fun of and they trot out a lousy finale with giant ants, even bigger fresh fruit, and karate kicking natives.

The young cast gets through Monster Island intact and are for the most part decent, but anyone over the age of twelve who aren't obsessed with TRL (and have starry eyes for celebrities) will toss this movie aside and pop-in the better monster movies spoofs that are out there like The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra and Lobster Man From Mars. (Chris Hartley, 9/23/05)

Directed By: Jack Perez.
Written By: Adam Glass, Jack Perez.

Starring: Carmen Electra, Daniel Letterle, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.