Just what this world needed- a sequel to one of the most boring movies ever made. But this time… it’s somehow even worse.
This is the sequel to the 2010 scifi movie called Monsters, which was directed, written, and produced by Gareth Edwards. It was his only other film before he went on to direct the 2014 Godzilla movie. I already reviewed Monsters, and I said it was extremely boring. The acting was boring, the characters were boring, barely anything happened with the monsters themselves, etc. As much as I did not like that one, I’d rather watch it on nonstop repeat for a whole week than have to sit through its garbage bag of a sequel.
Gareth Edwards had nothing to do with Monsters: Dark Continent, obviously because of his work with Godzilla. Instead, it was British director Tom Green that took the reins. Not to be confused with the Canadian filmmaker Tom Green known for such illustrious movies like Freddy Got Fingered, and Subway Monkey Hour. The Tom Green that directed Monsters: Dark Continent is best known for… directing Monsters: Dark Continent.
The plot is (either thankfully or unfortunately) very different from its predecessor. While the original Monsters, besides being boring as hell, was a survival adventure (which is a generous statement), Dark Continent is a war drama of all things. In theory, a giant monster movie that’s also half war drama sounds interesting, and I’m sure that if it’s done right in the future, it could make a decent movie, but as of now, Dark Continent is the only movie that I’m aware of that’s gone this route, and it failed.
The movie focuses on some guy from Detroit. I don’t remember his name, nor any other character’s name. All I know is that he hates Detroit, his friends hate Detroit, and he along with his friends are deploying into the army to go and fight the monsters that are… in the Middle East now, for some reason. If you happen to remember the backstory that the first installment gives, it clearly states that the monster fungus/virus thing latched onto a space probe, and the probe was destroyed re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. It landed in Mexico, where the monsters were spawned and where the first movie takes place. Apparently it either spread into the Middle East somehow, or scientists actually launched another space probe to go let the same thing happen again. Given how brain-numbingly boring the world of the first movie seemed, I wouldn’t doubt people deliberately trying to liven the place up some more.
So now the monsters are in the Middle East, and the main character’s group of friends deploy to go and fight them. As I said, this is a war drama. As such, the most dramatic and intense moments are NOT IN ANY WAY between the soldiers and the monsters. What, did you actually want and expect that to be the case? That would just be too entertaining. Why make a giant monster movie where the main antagonists are the actual freaking monsters? No, instead, the bad guys are Middle Eastern terrorists that are mad at the Americans for killing the giant destructive monsters because America can’t accomplish anything there without screwing up the place they’re saving in the process.
One thing that becomes really clear is the blatant ‘message’ of how the American military apparently sucks. While I do agree that there are some issues with the military that I think could be improved, the film’s ‘message’ falls utterly flat. It’s trying to convey how the US military causes more destruction and problems than necessary, but given the fact that they’re fighting hordes of gigantic monsters that are hundreds of feet tall, I wouldn’t doubt that the violence would be much higher than the warfare actually going on over in the Middle East in real life.
Also, the logic of the conflict doesn’t make any sense. If the terrorists get what they want, that being the absence of the Americans, then the monsters would be free to roam around and destroy anything without anyone being able to stop them. The countries over there don’t necessarily have that good of an army anyway, so they’d most likely be screwed. And the film doesn’t mention any other countries that are fighting monsters in the area, which would only be logical if this was happening in real life. However, that would go against the film’s ‘message’ that America is the only evil in the situation, which is clearly what the filmmakers wanted the viewers to feel.
To further the filmmakers’ ‘agenda’, the soldier characters are written to be the most stupid, obnoxious, immature, unstable brats that could possibly have been put on camera. I have relatives that served in the military. I’ve heard them talk about their time in the military. They did not act anything like the characters you see in the film. The sergeant character has to be the worst, though. Near the end of the movie, he finds the bodies of about a dozen American soldiers in some building in a town, then goes on a rage and asks non-English speaking civilians how the soldiers died... in English. He then shoots a civilian in the face in his own house in front of his family, prompting the main character to shoot him to get him to stop, which leads to an incredibly vague and stupid ending. I wouldn’t blame a person for needing a moment to get his emotions back on track after seeing the bodies of his allies, but a real experienced sergeant would not lose his mind like that.
The ‘dramatic scenes’ aren’t very good, either. The filmmakers thought that showing a bunch of intense and graphic war imagery would make the movie more effective, but the big problem was that I did not care for a single one of those characters. Maybe it would have been more meaningful if the soldier characters were developed and had more screentime, and didn’t act like idiots, but I could care less if G.I. Joe got his legs blown up since I never knew or cared about him in the first place.
Oh, and most, if not all, of the American soldier characters were played by actors from the UK.
Another thing that was immensely stupid was that for a movie with the word MONSTERS in the title, there was barely a focus on the monsters themselves, even less so than the first one! The monsters are just shown running around and getting blown up by air strikes. In the background. If the movie had action scenes that were Soldiers VS Monster instead of Soldiers VS Terrorists, it would have made it SO much more interesting and entertaining! But that apparently wasn’t the goal of the giant monster movie. Its goal was to bore us to death and shove the anti-American military message down our throats. Heck, that’s not even close to what the first movie’s attempt at a message was! The first film was simply: “humans are the real monsters”, not just one country! Though that message wasn’t executed well, it’s still a lot more meaningful than the message of this sequel!
If I could say ONE good thing about this movie, it would be that the special effects are good. The monster designs themselves are improved over the unimaginative squid designs of the first movie. In Dark Continent, there’s more variety in the monsters. There are 200 ft tall walking cluster-f#%ks, six-legged cheetah lookin’ things, a dog sized one, and a few others. They look nice, though with the big ones, I can hardly tell what I’m looking at. The downside is that they’re barely shown. There are clearer and longer shots of them than there were in the first movie, but they still didn’t do much. There was a “whimsical” scene where there was glowing spores and stuff… but I have no idea what it was about, what purpose it served to the monsters or the plot, and it just wasted time.
And the ending was weird, too. Though, calling it an ending is hardly accurate. There was no climax. The movie simply decided to… stop. The plot (if there ever was intended to be one) barely progressed. And there was a shot of a new enormous, ominous monster rising from the ground, roaring, and… cut to credits. There was no build up to that monster, no reason given as to what it was or what was even going on, and I could barely figure out what it was even supposed to look like, either. It’s like the filmmakers didn’t care.
In conclusion, Monsters: Dark Continent is one of the worst sequels ever made, and is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s insulting to the audience’s intelligence, it’s boring, horribly written, and is so stylistically and thematically different than the first Monsters that it hardly counts as a sequel. It makes me appreciate the first movie SO much more. It’s got meaningless war imagery, violence, and nudity. Yes, there’s sex and nudity in at least two scenes. It’s not hot, either. Everyone is ugly, and it’s drawn out and pointless. Everything is drawn out and pointless. It’s horrible. Don’t watch it. Please. Don’t waste your time. No amount of decent CGI will make up for how bad it is. This video I found sums it up perfectly.
FINAL RATING: 4 / 50
STORY: 0 / 5 - Story. Hmm. That’s what they call it. Sure. “Story”.
ACTING: 0 / 5 - Jai Courtney is Oscar worthy compared to these performances.
CHARACTERS: 0 / 5 - There were characters in this movie? Is that what they were supposed to be?
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 4 / 5 - The only strong point of the movie.
ACTION/DRAMA: 0 / 5 - American politics are more intense.
SOUNDTRACK: 0 / 5 - One of the most forgettable tracks ever.
TONE: 0 / 5 - Takes itself way too seriously.
ENJOYABILITY: 0 / 5 - I’d have more fun with Superman Returns.
REWATCH VALUE: 0 / 5 - I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy.
OWNING VALUE: 0 / 5 - It’s not worth a single atom of a penny.
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