Monsters: Dark Continent (2014) Reviews

• This is NOT a Sci-Fi / Horror movie

  Reaper-of-Souls2015-03-15

  I was excited when I first heard about a sequel to MONSTERS. Then, as I often do when trying to keep up with all the films I eagerly await, I lost track of it and all-of-a-sudden it became available. Being a big fan of the original, I couldn't wait to see it. Now that I've watched it, I can't stress how much of a disappointment it was. MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT is NOT a Sci-Fi / Horror movie. It is a war movie disguised as a Sci-Fi. And it's not even a very good war movie at that. It's somewhere in the middle. Very average. The biggest, of very few, somewhat redeeming qualities was the special effects. The monsters looked great! To bad they were overwhelmingly used as backdrop props, looking like a herd of buffalo at times. I'll never understand why this wasn't just strictly a war movie. It could have been an above average war movie if the money spent on the monster effects had been used for a bigger war setting or better actors. There was just no need for monsters to be roaming in the background of a war movie, never really posing any threat to the characters. I don't know what else to say. Very disappointing.

• The real monster is inside

  siderite2015-03-16

  I remember only vaguely the first Monsters movie and my review from back then said that I liked it a lot. As in that one, the alien monsters are just a backdrop - although in this film I would say that they are superfluous. The story is about a group of kids from Detroit who join the army, go in some Arabic desert and fight both monsters and insurgents. The big big problem with this film is the length. It two hours long. From those, a quarter is just presenting the characters in a pompous way that doesn't really say anything about them, another is about hooting manly and being manly shouted at by their instructors, then the rest is about how they didn't absorb any of the training at all and how their manliness doesn't really do anything for them. I am being a bit mean. I guess the message was that monsters are everywhere, from the people setting a dog on a little alien forcing it to defend itself and kill the dog, to the American forces mindlessly killing civilians, from the Arab insurgents who kill soldiers, to the maddened soldier who needs to kill everybody that even looks like an enemy. As usual, the alien monsters are just minding their own peaceful business. Bottom line: the movie failed in a number of ways: bad character exposition, pointless length, stupid soldiering, a plot that has no need of the aliens. The (valid) point that it wanted to make was lost in all this noise.

• Deserves every lost dime of it's poor box office performance

  Paynebyname2016-01-13

  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.

• Monsters: The Hurt Locker 2

  jgibbons-52015-03-19

  Wow! Not a good wow, but just wow. I was really psyched to hear about a sequel to "Monsters" because that was such a great sci-fi movie but man, was I disappointed in this one. This was really just an anti-war movie and I think there was a message in there about the middle-east conflict but I couldn't be sure because there were so many confusing themes happening at the same time. The one thing this wasn't was a sci- fi movie about.....monsters. They could have edited out every monster scene and it would not have changed the movie one bit, I'm not kidding. If I had seen a pre-release copy that didn't have the special effects added in, I wouldn't have been confused about what was going on, at least no more than I am now. I'm sorry Tom Green but a swing and a miss.

• Another US vs Taliban movie, with an occasional monster thrown in. A lot like Battle LA, if there were no aliens

  cosmo_tiger2015-04-24

  "This was our home. It was our last day, so for those last few hours we needed to forget about what was coming." Ten years after the monsters landed on Earth things have gotten worse. They have begun to fully take over the entire planet and now with the US military using all of its resources to fight them off they now have to contend with a new type of insurgency. I will start by saying that I remember seeing the first one, thinking it was a little slow, but it's been so long all I remember about it is the cheesy ending. I had the same expectations for this one. I was wrong. While I though this one was a little better it was still pretty slow moving and was really missing something the first one had...monsters. In terms of war movies this one is pretty decent, the problem with it is that every so often a monster would pop up out of nowhere, presumably to remind you the movie is called monsters. Some movies are deceiving because of the trailers released, they seem funny and are really dramas, etc...this is the first movie I have seen where the title is misleading. This is really just another US vs Taliban movie, with an occasional (out of place) monster thrown in. Overall, a movie much like Battle LA, if there were no aliens in that movie. I give this a C.