The Monster’s Missing, But the Boredom Isn’t
There are bad sequels, and then there’s Monsters: Dark Continent — a film so profoundly confused about what it wants to be that it ends up being about absolutely nothing. It’s not a war movie. It’s not a monster movie. It’s not even an anti-war movie. It’s just sand — 120 minutes of sand, sweat, and soldiers mumbling about “missions” while CGI tentacles occasionally wave politely in the background like they’re lost tourists.
This so-called sequel to Gareth Edwards’ quietly brilliant 2010 film Monsters trades that movie’s subtlety, atmosphere, and tension for a boot camp of clichés and a script that sounds like it was written by someone who watched The Hurt Locker once, drunk, and thought, “You know what this needs? Space squids.”
Plot: Apocalypse Now, But Make It Pointless
Ten years after the first film’s events, the “infected zones” — regions populated by giant extraterrestrial life forms — have apparently spread to the Middle East. And by “spread,” I mean someone in the production office photoshopped a few tentacles into stock footage of Jordan and called it a day.
We meet our protagonists: a group of Detroit buddies who decide that enlisting in the Army and heading into the monster zone sounds like a great idea. Because nothing screams patriotism like joining the military to shoot aliens who couldn’t care less about you.
There’s Michael (Sam Keeley), the sensitive one; Frankie (Joe Dempsie), the “funny” one; Williams (Parker Sawyers), the soon-to-be-dead one; and Inkelaar (Kyle Soller), the one whose name you’ll forget before the next paragraph. They’re led by grizzled veteran Frater (Johnny Harris), who’s basically a cross between every angry sergeant in movie history and a bottle of whiskey that learned to yell.
The soldiers’ mission is to find some missing comrades in a “particularly active area.” What they find instead is an endless loop of misery: IEDs, insurgents, trauma, and enough macho banter to fill an entire Call of Duty DLC. Every twenty minutes, a giant monster wanders by in the background, probably wondering why it’s not in a better movie.
By the end, everyone is dead, except for Michael, who’s helicoptered away while staring moodily into the distance, realizing the true monster was the screenplay all along.
Characters: Now With 50% More Grunting
The first Monsters succeeded because it made us care about two characters lost in an extraordinary situation. Dark Continent responds to that by giving us six interchangeable soldiers whose main personality traits are “male” and “sweaty.”
Michael Parkes (Sam Keeley) is our de facto protagonist, though his main function is to look confused and narrate in a monotone voice like he’s reading his own eulogy. His transformation from wide-eyed rookie to traumatized vet is meant to be poignant, but mostly it just makes you wonder if the craft services tent was air-conditioned.
Frater (Johnny Harris), on the other hand, screams his way through the movie like a man who lost a fight with a thesaurus. He’s supposed to be the hardened mentor, but he’s really just an angry dad who never learned to use his inside voice.
The rest of the crew are cannon fodder with names. Frankie cracks jokes until he bleeds to death, Williams gets blown up early for emotional effect, and Inkelaar dies mid-sentence, presumably from exhaustion caused by the script.
Sofia Boutella makes a brief appearance as a local woman named Ara, because apparently every war movie requires “the one local who proves not everyone in this country is evil.” Michaela Coel also pops up, seemingly on her way to a better project. Blink and you’ll miss them — which, honestly, might be for the best.
The Monsters: Now With 90% Less Screen Time
Let’s talk about the “monsters” — because the title is Monsters: Dark Continent, and you’d expect at least a few.
In Gareth Edwards’ original film, the creatures were both terrifying and tragic — mysterious beings that symbolized nature reclaiming the Earth. In Dark Continent, they’re glorified extras. They show up every thirty minutes like bad cameos, towering in the distance or stomping through sandstorms while the soldiers ignore them completely.
It’s as if the aliens wandered onto the wrong set — “Sorry, lads, we were looking for Pacific Rim.”
And when the film finally does focus on them, it’s not to show carnage or awe. No, it’s to deliver metaphors. The monsters are apparently “a reflection of our inner conflicts” or some such nonsense. Which would be fine if the movie didn’t beat you over the head with it like a copy of Heart of Darkness wrapped in camo netting.
Tone: Existential Despair, But With Less Purpose
If Monsters was a poetic meditation on humanity’s insignificance, Dark Continent is a two-hour TED Talk about how war is bad — delivered by someone who just discovered nihilism on Reddit.
The movie desperately wants to say something profound about American intervention, trauma, and the cost of violence. But instead of subtlety, it opts for endless slow-motion shots of soldiers walking toward explosions while dramatic music swells like it’s auditioning for a perfume commercial titled “Desperation: The Fragrance.”
The narration tries to sound deep — “We came to fight monsters, but we brought them with us” — but ends up sounding like a freshman film student’s essay titled War: What Is It Good For (Except Plot Devices)?
The result is a movie that thinks it’s profound because it’s miserable. Every scene is soaked in dust, death, and despair. It’s like if Jarhead had a baby with a migraine.
Direction: Sand, Sweat, and Shaky Cam
Director Tom Green (no, not that Tom Green, though it might’ve been more entertaining if it were) shoots everything through a grimy lens that makes you feel like you’re watching a commercial for military-grade sunscreen.
The handheld camerawork is relentless. It’s meant to be immersive, but it mostly makes you wonder if the cinematographer was fleeing an actual monster while filming. When the monsters finally do appear, the camera shakes so much you could swear they’re being chased by the Blair Witch.
Green clearly wants to capture the gritty realism of war — but when your realism includes bioluminescent tentacles, maybe grit isn’t the right tone.
Pacing: The Real Monster Is Time
Clocking in at nearly two hours, Dark Continent feels longer than the actual Iraq War. It’s a marathon of misery punctuated by occasional moments of “Wait, was that supposed to be profound?”
For a film about giant aliens, it spends most of its time watching soldiers trudge through deserts, argue about morality, and occasionally shoot at things offscreen. You could cut 40 minutes of sand-staring and still have room for more monsters — or, heaven forbid, a plot.
Final Act: Apocalypse Then
By the time the finale rolls around, we’re down to two characters — Michael and Frater — who wander aimlessly through the desert like they’ve lost both their faith and their GPS signal.
Frater snaps, Michael cries, a giant monster rises from the dunes, and the film ends with a helicopter rescue that feels less like salvation and more like the audience being extracted from cinematic purgatory.
No closure, no message, just an overwhelming sense of “We did this already, and better, in 2010.”
Final Thoughts: Monsters Without Teeth
Monsters: Dark Continent is the kind of sequel that misunderstands everything that made the original special. Gareth Edwards’ Monsters was quiet, eerie, and emotionally resonant. This one is loud, confused, and emotionally constipated.
It tries to be The Hurt Locker but ends up as The Hurt Viewer. The monsters are symbolic, the message is muddled, and the only real horror is realizing you still have 45 minutes left.
Final Verdict:
⭐️½ out of 5.
A grim, joyless slog that mistakes sandstorms for symbolism and shouting for storytelling. The title says “Monsters,” but the real creature feature here is the bloated corpse of what used to be subtle science fiction.
