Monsters: Dark Continent

It's 10 years after Monsters. In the Middle East, the US military struggles to fight both the monsters and insurgents. Staff Sgt Frater has served 17 years. In Detroit, best friends Michael Parkes, Frankie Maguire, Karl Inkelaar, and new father Sean Williams head off as green soldiers.

I don't know how much Gareth Edwards has to do with this production. I don't know if he could help as the director. It's not strictly the director's fault. It's more about the writing. It's a bunch of characters that I don't know and don't care about. The monsters are back but this is lifeless. One would think that the US military would draw back out of the Middle East to consolidate the homeland defense. After Monsters, a sequel should be about stemming the tide on American soil. The original was a happy surprise. This one is a disappointment but not necessarily a surprising one.

What a load of pretentious, art w*nk nonsense this film really is.

It's bad enough that the story is paper thin and the characters are as unlikeable as an upset stomach (one minute gangsta tough, the next screaming like babies) but the direction is shocking.

It's like a frustrated art student trying out every possible style of image capture. Long shots, close shots, lens flare, angled, shaky cam, slow mo and none of them working.

One pointless scene of a helicopter taking off showed it's ascent from at least 10 different angles - outside looking up, inside looking out, inside looking inside, outside different angle etc etc.

Every character must have had at least two shots of them silent screaming from the Dummies Guide to filming internal angst.

Things aren't explained, geography is not established and you can almost feel the makers telegraphing their contempt to the audience that 'if you don't get this, you're too stupid'.

It's not engaging, thought provoking or entertaining. And when it's finished all you can contemplate is the utter pointlessness of the whole film.

I know many complain of studio execs interfering with a film but you really have to question who greenlit this laughable project or signed off the finished product for general release.

Whoever it was can't tell the difference between a movie and a flickerbook of cool filtered Instagram pics.

The movie is called Monsters, but similar to the first, the monsters have so little to do with the story, even more so in the second than the first.

It's all about male bonding during military time as a platoon of boys from the same hood in Detroit go to war together in the Middle East.

The picture moves quickly, never a dull moment, very kinetic movement. Good action and lots of good war scenes.

The acting could used improvement. All the screaming and crotch grabbing did not convince me of their military standpoint.

But director Tom Green is definitely a good visual artist here. The imagery was very instance. Very good cinematography.

Visual effects were decent as well.

Total exploitation of war that ads a sci-fi fantasy elements with the monsters, used only as a backdrop no different than the dessert the movie takes place in.

Overall, I like the movie, despite how little the monsters have to do with the story at all. It seems misleading going into it, however.

OMG! I just saw this and...don't! It was soooo boring. It was NOTHING like the first movie. I know the director said it wasn't a sequel, but still, it was not good. A big problem was the title. It's called Monster: The Dark Continent. The dark continent is what Africa's known as. However, this movie seemed more like a film about the Iraq war with the monsters as a very distant backdrop. Granted, they didn't say they were in Iraq. I don't actually recall them saying where the film took place.

Some said the acting was bad. I didn't have a problem with the acting. The cinematography was good. I just expected something VERY different.

Some of the monsters were like galloping antelope. Others were like birds. Some seemed like walking trees. The point is, they didn't come across as any sort of a threat. As I said, boring.

I gave this a 4-star rating. I do not recommend. Watch the first one, and look at that as a one-story movie. This one didn't do anything but bore me to tears. Now I'm really tired. When I feel like going to sleep after watching a movie -- in the early evening -- that's how I can tell a movie sucked.

The beauty of the original 2010 Monsters was its profound statement, Dark Continent satisfies the original naysayer's with action, and not much else.

The initial 2010 film Monsters was a profound parable about humanity and its interactions with one another that used an 'alien invasion' as a mirror for this introspection. It is an independent film I adore and can not recommend enough. Four years later, with seemingly no connection to the original's genius creator Gareth Edwards, Monsters: Dark Continent is released, with absolutely no relation to the 2010 film in both scope or talent.

Though the term 'derivative' does not imply subservience in its definition, quite often it is used as a descriptor for inferiority, and Monsters: Dark Continent warrants the adjective. When I first learned of a sequel to Monsters, I was aghast, for the narrative had been told in its entirety. When I saw the trailer, I was mortified of the bastardization of the beautiful film into Hollywood action drivel.

With the scope of potential from its predecessor being a peak of perfection to the lows of my expectations of pure garbage, Monsters: Dark Continent falls somewhere in the middle but certainly closer to trash. In truth, Dark Continent tries to be like its original in using the alien invasion to be an allegory for the war efforts in the middle east. Unfortunately it feels terribly superficial and contrived.

There is no beauty in the story telling of Dark Continent. The dialogue is poor and voice overs are used constantly to convey the narrative rather than creative artistry. Monsters: Dark Continent is neither philosophical nor intelligent in the manner of its originator. Writer and director Tom Green tries to speak of the war but it is in a very ignorant and uninformed perspective that is neither deep or even unique.

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