The ‘Dark Continent’ was dubious colonial-speak for Africa. So why it’s being used as the subtitle for a movie set in the Middle East is anyone’s guess. Sadly, that’s not even the dumbest thing about this sequel to Gareth Edwards’s DIY alien adventure ‘Monsters’. Eschewing the intimate style of the first film, ‘Monsters: Dark Continent’ takes its cues from ‘Black Hawk Down’: a desert-set, men-on-a-mission movie complete with jabbering jihadis, macho hysteria and the occasional extraterrestrial waving its tentacles in the background as if to say: ‘Isn’t this supposed to be about me?’
Sam Keeley is Michael, a kid from Detroit who signs up for military service, and is promptly assigned to (insert interchangeable Arabic nation here). With the entire area suffering a monsters-from-space infestation, the US Army has embarked on an indiscriminate bombing campaign.
‘Monsters: Dark Continent’ has precisely two strengths: beautifully crisp desert photography and a twitchy turn from ‘This Is England’ star Johnny Harris as an unhinged sergeant. Otherwise this is blunt, amateurish and underwhelming, its alien invaders little more than CGI window-dressing.