Movie review
December 21, 2016 · 104 min · PG
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
Monster Trucks is a 2016 family action-comedy about a high school senior named Tripp who builds a monster truck and discovers a fast, octopus-like underground creature he names Creech. Tripp hides the creature under the hood of his truck, and the pair team up to outrun oil company workers while trying to reunite Creech with its family. The story includes a light environmental message about protecting the creatures from greedy drilling, but it stays secondary to the chases, friendship, and silly fun with no identity themes or lectures.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Monster Trucks.
Woke representation / casting
Casting follows a conventional small-town American setting with white leads and logical supporting roles; no audience-visible push for diversity quotas or identity signaling.
Woke political dialogue
Minor anti-corporate lines about the oil company as greedy villains appear in the adventure plot, but they remain generic kids-movie tropes without lectures or modern ideological framing.
Identity-driven story themes
The core story is about friendship between a boy and a creature plus high-speed chases; no identity politics, gender arcs, or representation-focused elements drive the narrative.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The oil company is shown as willing to harm the environment and creatures for profit, a classic corporate-villain setup common in family films, without deeper modern activist critiques of capitalism or social systems.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant; this is an original story with no source material or historical figures altered.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
No meaningful public debate, backlash, or woke-related complaints surfaced; coverage stayed on box-office performance and entertainment value.
Creator track record context
The team comes from family animation, blockbusters, and action films with clean records free of activist or identity-driven projects; the light environmental thread fits broad Hollywood norms but shows no personal pattern.
Production
