What made Gareth Edwards‘ "Monsters" so refreshing and "Godzilla" so disappointing is that the former film brought a sense of atmosphere, beauty and awe to the monster movie genre. While Edwards was criticized for playing hide-and-go-seek with the titular creature in this past summer’s blockbuster, his feature debut worked because there was no history attached to his creature, and so the mystery sustained much more beautifully and evocatively. But no one really goes to the multiplex these days for those qualities, and so it’s not a shock that the Edwards-less sequel "Monsters: The Dark Continent" seems to up the thrills and kill the nuance.
A new trailer has arrived for the Tom Green-directed movie, and it multiplies the number of monsters tenfold, brings in the military and paints the proceedings in a pretty thin, not particularly well elaborated terrorism allegory. That said, the action does look intense: we did enjoy the dog vs. mini-monster fight, and while this doesn’t seem cut from the same cloth as Edwards’ movie, Green does seems to be taking this opportunity to make his own mark as a filmmaker.
"Monsters: Dark Continent" will premiere at the London Film Festival and open in the U.K. on November 28th. No U.S. release date just yet. [Film Divider]
