MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2015) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

monsters: dark continent (2015) movie

Genre             |  Science Fiction

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   119 minutes

Released         |   17 April 2015

cast

Johnny Harris ... Noah Frater
Sam Keeley ... Michael Parkes
Joe Dempsie ... Frankie Maguire
Kyle Soller ... Karl Inkelaar
Nicholas Pinnock ... Sergeant Forrest
Parker Sawyers ... Shaun Williams
Philip Arditti ... Khalil
Sofia Boutella ... Ara
​Michaela Coel ... Kelly

director

Tom Green

writer

Tom Green 
and
​Jay Basu

cinematographer

​Christopher Ross

music

Neil Davidge

film editor

​Richard Graham

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box office result

Worldwide             $unknown 

Australia                 $​​unknown

North America       $​unknown

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the best dialogue

Noah Frater: Why am i here? What am i doing here?

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2015) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2015) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Ten years on from the events of "Monsters", and the 'Infected Zones' have now spread worldwide. In the Middle East a new insurgency has begun. At the same time there has also been a proliferation of Monsters in that region.

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2015) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 16 April 2015
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT in English film-maker Tom Green's follow-up to Gareth Edwards' 2010 break-through film. Once again, the titular monsters take a back seat in Green's film; who is more interested in making a statement about Western military involvement in the Middle East, much like Edwards was keen to make a statement about America's border protection efforts in the first film. This film is character study of two men. One who has lost his humanity and the other desperate to keep his in tact despite everything going on around him.

The film opens with an extremely well put together sequence that introduces the viewer to Frater (Johnny Harris), an American Army Sergeant who is highly-skilled marksman. This skill is put to use in the opening minutes, as Frater shoots a would-be terrorist leader believed to be leading a local insurgency. The story then cuts back to the United States, where Parkes (Sam Keely), Frankie (Joe Dempsie) and Williams (Patrick Sawyers) are getting ready to ship out on the first tour of the Middle East.

​Green's film makes it quite obvious that there is not a great deal of difference between what they're coming from and going to - they're both extremely undesirable. The three young soldiers seem to be completely aimless in their hometown of Detroit, as Green uses the city as a tangible expression of the demise of American & Western society. In doing so, he creates a context for their arrival in the Middle East that makes the viewer question why America is there in the first place, making the viewer pose the question in their own mind, "How can these people help others if they can't even help themselves?"

The cultural schism is brought into sharper focus when Parkes, Frankie and Williams are assigned to Frater. Harris builds the on-set of Frater's madness quite slowly, but it's clear from the beginning that he has some underlying issues with his ability to connect with the people around him as well as his wife & daughter back in America. The story that unfolds sees Green use the alien creatures as window-dressing to tell the story about a very different kind of monster. The second half of the movie sees Frater's teams slowly diminished as he and his men get caught up in an Insurgency that trap that leaves them without transportation and exposed. Each setback only makes Frater more determined to complete his mission to rescue four soldiers who need extraction from a village under Insurgency control.

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT uses the template of the 2010 film in as much as it's not about alien creatures trying to kill the human protagonists in increasingly gore-filled fashion. Viewers who are looking for that will be sadly disappointed by this film and should go back and re-watch one of the PITCH BLACK series. 

DARK CONTINENT is more about human beings and their different capacities to do things both good and bad. Director Tom Green has made an extremely intense movie that will not be for every viewer, as he does not shy away from showing hardship of life and the horror of war. The performances are intense; especially Johnny Harris as Frater.  

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT is not an uplifting piece of entertainment but is a very good film, challenging the viewer to consider their place in the scheme of life.

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2015) USEFUL LINKS

Monsters: Dark Continent - Wikipedia
Monsters: Dark Continent (2014) - IMDb
​Monsters: Dark Continent (2015) - Rotten Tomatoes

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