Tom Green and Jay Basu co-wrote and co-directed the 2014 science fiction monster movie Monsters: Dark Continent in Britain. It is the sequel to Monsters, directed by Gareth Edwards in 2010. Despite Edwards’ involvement in “Monsters: Dark Continent” as an executive producer, neither conceptually nor artistically does the sequel resemble his first.
Ten years after the events of the previous film, the Middle East has been overrun by the creatures from the Dark Continent. In an unnamed Middle Eastern country, the US military has entrenched itself. It frequently carpet-bombs the desert, leaving behind numerous large monster carcasses and terrible casualties among common people. To combat the monsters rumbling across the desert and insurgents armed with RPGs and improvised explosive devices, the military wages a two-front fight
Six years ago, NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system.
MONSTERS 2010
Our interest is piqued as we learn more and more that “Monsters” is not a basic exploitation movie. “Monsters” was written and directed by Gareth Edwards. He was also the one who created all of the special effects. A beautiful, calm, poetic movie that emphasizes locations above monsters. The film’s opening action scene is a touch cheesy and reminiscent of Cloverfield. However, it then moves on to the main plot and gradually develops the emotional landscapes of the characters and the environments they faced.
Samantha Wynden and Scoot McNairy play Andrew Kaulder in the narrative (Whitney Able). He is an independent photographer. She is the boss’s daughter, Kaulder.
A NASA deep-space mission crashes in Mexico, and alien life forms proliferate along the border with the United States, forcing Mexico’s whole southern half into lockdown. While a wall rises along the American frontier, the military of the United States and Mexico fight to keep the monsters under control with airstrikes and defoliation. A US Army patrol travelling through a community in the middle of the night is seen on camera with night vision at the beginning of the movie.
The probe’s tainted fragments alter the local biology, causing enormous changes that are deadly to adjacent populations, including mankind. Thousands have perished. The monsters have expanded to considerable sizes, and the U.S. military deploys jet fighters to combat them, but they are too deeply established in the nearby environment to be stopped. The American government constructs a massive wall along the border, resembling a King Kong scene, to keep the illness out. Some residents of the Infected Zone are adamant about staying put, while others can’t wait to get out.
A few days before the attack, the primary narrative line starts. The wealthy employer of Andrew, working in Mexico, hires Andrew to return Samantha to the United States. The two have a difficult time getting along because Andrew does not want to be a group leader, is troubled by his job because it requires him to only document the aliens’ destruction instead of confirming the fact that humans coexist with them, and is haunted by the thought of missing his estranged son’s sixth birthday. While everything is happening, Samantha has a crisis over her own place in life, her connection with her dad, and her upcoming marriage.
Their escorts drive them to a meeting place in a pickup truck; from there, a boat transports them downstream. For a brief period, the movie has an air of Herzog’s Aguirre, The Wrath of God, complete with the unsettling scene of a rickety ship stuck in a tree. Of course, the two start to fall for one other along the road, just like most man-woman pairs on risky journeys over the unknown. Beyond the travel, not much else seems to happen, at least on the surface. They will be unable to travel by water or air after a few days, and they’ll be required to wait 6 months until another opportunity opens up.
Andrew is compelled to pay $5000 when he gets to the dock to purchase Samantha a boat ticket to return to America. They have a drink that night and start to get to know one another, but when Andrew realizes Samantha isn’t engaged with him emotionally, he gets wasted and sleeps with the local girl. Samantha discovers Andrew with the girl when she wakes up and heads to his room to bid her goodbyes. She then exits. But because Andrew has her passport and he discovers that both his and her keys have indeed been taken, she cannot board the ship. The “Infected Zone” is the only way to get to America in a fair amount of time now that the ferry has been destroyed.
Samantha must surrender her pricey engagement diamond to bribe them, probably past the checkpoint.
Little substance is included in Edwards’ writing, but it is not necessary. There is little dialogue, and character development is minimal. However, the movie has a subtle nobility. Edwards, who also doubles as the cinematographer, uses standard video equipment to produce discursive images of the stunning Mexican countryside.
They travel by boat across Central America, where they witness the aliens’ devastation but also the return of nature to these previously uninhabited areas. They are then shown how the life forms are terraforming the earth and are threatened by one of the beasts while travelling in a convoy with armed guards. The pair’s connection develops throughout numerous encounters, from camaraderie to love. They eventually reach the tall wall that divides the Infected Zone from the United States.
When they get through the checkpoint, Andrew and Samantha discover that the whole Texas area has been cleared and that the aliens have brought quite far into American land. After strolling along an evacuation route, the two come upon an abandoned gas station. When Andrew phones the police, they inform him that an Army rescue squad is nearby and that the two are fortunate to still be alive.
Andrew and Samantha call their relatives to make amends: Andrew calls his father, and Samantha calls her father.
Monsters are required in a film with the title “Monsters.” However, at its spectacular climax, we learn they shouldn’t be referred to as Monsters but as Beings. They come from Europa, a moon of Jupiter with a thin atmosphere of oxygen and perhaps an ocean underneath its surface. It’s one of the top prospects for extraterrestrial life, and if it’s difficult to imagine how 50-foot-tall floating spiders with a pulsating inner light might represent that life, then that’s an alien for you. The bastards are constantly up to mischief.
Ten years after the events of Monsters, the ‘Infected Zones’ have now spread worldwide
DARK CONTINENT (2015)
With Monsters: Dark Continent, director Tom Green has taken over the Monsters franchise from Edwards, who has moved on. Similar to the previous movie, a small Army battalion is the main emphasis as they embark on a mission to save four missing troops, rather than the aliens, who look to have become a global menace. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After all, the viewer doesn’t truly learn that little bit of information until 40 minutes into this two-hour Monster.
Dark Continent picks up 10 years after the events of Monsters and follows a squad of American troops sent to an oddly vague Middle Eastern nation. The monsters, restricted initially to diseased areas along the Mexican-American border, have spread worldwide, and most people have become accustomed to them. However, in the war-torn, sun-baked Middle East, they’ve just exacerbated the instability, and a new movement has attempted to further destabilize the region by promoting lawlessness.
We watch as four brand-new recruits from Detroit eagerly anticipate putting their training into practice. They first think of everything as a game, but when they are assigned a special mission to rescue five troops who have become stranded in the Infected Zone, everything swiftly changes. Their goal mainly focuses on humans, but they are also told to kill any creatures that cross their path along the road. Like any other land mammal, we have adapted to coexist with these enormous beasts. The military only uses force to reduce population.
The teenage soldiers set out on a life-changing expedition into the heart of monster country while venturing deep into the I.Z. When they finally accomplish their aim, they will have had to face the horrors of eliminating the extraterrestrial menace. If Monsters utilized its alien guests to address immigration, Dark Continent tries to do the same with the brutality of modern combat.
As opposed to the first movie, which used monsters as metaphors in a relatively clever way. Men turn become actual monsters in the heat of battle. That’s a very, very common topic for a war film. One could believe that the movie could find an intriguing angle to take on the subject now that alien life has been abruptly introduced.
In contrast to other sci-fi films, Monsters: Dark Continent is considerably more of a war film. It adheres to every genre cliché, including wild pre-deployment parties, the few ladies are almost exclusively G-string-clad, hazy patriotism, and a half-hearted portrayal of post-traumatic stress illness. Every time the plot looks to be taking an exciting turn but returning to the fundamentals. It seems like Green and Basu have a lot to say about the atrocities of war and how nobody is spared from them.
MONSTERS – THE CREATURES
The alien beings of undetermined origin known as The Monsters make appearances in the 2010 film Monsters and its 2014 follow-up, Monsters: Dark Continent. Due to the Monsters’ tolerance to dry environments, many more subspecies are shown in the last movie than in the first.
Although there are many different subspecies and varieties of monsters, many of them have anatomical similarities. Each array of Monster has some tentacle on its body, many of which have a structure similar to a cephalopod. Depending on the habitat they are situated in, several of these forms can develop into different sizes.
These species evolved from Europa, which circled Jupiter in the earth’s solar system. A NASA space probe unintentionally tracked the creature’s reproductive spores when life was found on the moon. To keep the public safe, humans became violently hostile toward these animals and tried to restrict them within quarantine zones forcibly.
The film’s ambitious narrative is finally realized thanks to Edwards’ extraordinary ability to evoke the wonder and beauty he has been building toward. Life has its purposes, and I believe that to be the lesson. Motives seem to be quite general. Monsters might vary depending on who sees them. As we understand, “Monsters” is not a casual commercial film; it captures our interest more and more.
We anticipate looking at the aliens up close sooner rather than later. Let’s claim it’s not a letdown when we do. Both hideous and strangely attractive, they are. Nothing like them has ever been seen before. Additionally, their motivations are revealed in a scene that combines unusual tension with spooky lyricism.
WHY IT’S A MUST WATCH
You must realize that this isn’t your typical monster movie. You seldom ever see them, yet you can still sense their presence. We accompany the pair as they travel back from Mexico to the United States, accompanying them at every turn. Rather than moviegoers, we are more like traveling buddies.
Overall, Monsters is a good movie, but there are certain critical areas where it could have and could have been improved. It never has the commentary it so obviously needs, is never as intelligent as it thinks it is and is never as enjoyable as it should be.
The making should be applauded from the rooftops.