Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Monsters: Dark Continent

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    C.D. Workman
    Senior Member

  • Monsters: Dark Continent



    Released by: Anchor Bay
    Released on: June 2, 2015
    Director: Tom Green
    Cast: Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Joe Dempsie, Jesse Nagy, Nicholas Pinnock, Parker Sawyers, Kyle Soller, Sofie Boutella, Michaela Coel
    Year: 2014
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    A group of army buddies from Detroit are deployed to the Middle East to combat an insurgency. There, they are assigned to commanding officers Forrest and Frater. Part of their mission is to find and rescue four soldiers missing in an area known for both giant monsters and insurgents. Their rescue hits a snag, however, when their convoy drives over an IED, killing several members of the team, including Forrest. The remaining members are either shot or taken into captivity, but Frater manages to save himself and another member of the group. Regardless, the two men's troubles are far from over; they still have to make it back to camp through a maze of men and monsters, an act made all the more difficult by Frater's descent into madness.

    The original Monsters was shot in 2010 by a young British auteur, Gareth Edwards, who acted as director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and special effects wizard. The film dealt with an alien invasion in Mexico that left the nation economically crippled and much of it a militarized zone. The main character was an American photojournalist tasked with getting his boss's daughter back to the United States safely. Produced on a miniscule budget of less than $500,000, Edwards had to rely on a sharp screenplay, strong acting, and ingenious ideas to hold viewers' interests. The critically acclaimed film proved a success, making a tidy profit in British theaters before finding its true audience on DVD and Blu-ray. Needless to say, a sequel was inevitable. Unfortunately, Edwards had moved into the big leagues with the second American adaptation of Toho's classic creation, Godzilla (2014), paving the way for another British director, Tom Green, to fill his shoes. Too bad Green was nowhere near the visionary his predecessor was, leaving Monsters: Dark Continent to lumber in the shadow of its awkward but brilliant parent.

    Monsters: Dark Continent doesn't know whether it wants to be a war film or a science fiction film, and it makes the mistake of having too many irons in the fire at once, pitting man against himself, man against man, and man against monster. With a misleading ad campaign and title, its man-against-monster subplot takes a backseat to the story of a commanding officer driven insane by the stresses of war. Given that the film, as with its predecessor, was made on an extremely small budget, it makes sense that the titular monsters would be only rarely glimpsed or utilized—and to be fair, when they do appear, they look terrific, such as when a gaggle of adolescent creatures run alongside an army convoy. The problem is that anti-hero Frater is too much of a cliché to carry the remainder of the film's villainy. It's as if director Green wanted to recast Apocalypse Now (1979) or Platoon (1986) as a giant monster movie but retain the strong human elements that made those films successful. The move doesn't work, however, despite terrific performances from everyone involved. The characters simply aren't interesting enough to draw one into their lives. They're walking, talking stereotypes, The Boys of Company C (1978) without the kind of writing needed to make them come to life. Green aims for realism and gets it, and that's a good thing; what he doesn't get is a story worth telling.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Anchor Bay has released Monsters: Dark Continent with an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 1080p hi-def approximating the film's original 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio. The image is nicely textured, with a mild grain field artificially applied to make digital look like film. It certainly doesn't hurt anything. Detail is generally sharp, offering a Middle Eastern terrain awash in sand, rock, dirt, and pebbles. Hair, skin, and clothes are exhaustively detailed, though filters designed to drain the color from the proceedings does the image a disservice. If the intent is to look like every other modern war film out there, particularly The Hurt Locker (2008), the director has succeeded. The film is gritty and nihilistic, just not original and thought-provoking, a problem exacerbated by its washed-out but well-framed imagery.

    The film's soundtrack is provided in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. It's a problematic track, with terrific surround but sound levels that are all over the place. One minute a loud musical cue will threaten to blow your speakers, the next the sound drops so low that voices cannot be made out. The solution is to either hold the system's remote in your hand and adjust the sound accordingly, or watch the entire film with the subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired turned on and the sound turned down. At least the sound is clear and free of hiss, distortion, or dropout.

    Thankfully, Anchor Bay has utilized a 50GB disc, which offers plenty of space for what is a fairly lengthy film. There are no compression issues in either the image or the sound.

    There are only two extras, but both are worth watching. “On the Set of Monsters: Dark Continent” is a featurette lasting less than three minutes. Towering over the proceedings is director Green, who guides the viewer through the film's realistic yet make-believe world ravaged by aliens and humans alike. There's also a teaser trailer, which runs a little over a minute in length.

    The Final Word:

    Monsters: Dark Continent is no chip off the old block. It tries to emulate the first film's man-over-monster approach, but with a weaker, more derivative story, it simply doesn't succeed. Sci-fi action is kept to a minimum, but what little is there is effective, beautifully framed, and treated realistically, with strong CGI. Too bad the human monsters push the Lovecraftian denizens to the side. In most ways the image is strong, but the lack of color and the desire for grit does the entire affair a disservice while the sound is a little too eclectic. And finally, extras are minimal but worth watching. People who love both war and science fiction films will find a lot to like in it; everyone else should use caution.

    Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!







    [img]http://www.rockshockpop.com/screencaps/MonstersDarkContinent/04-2.jpg[/img]












      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X