...so I have three questions.
1) How the hell did Gareth Edwards minimalist immigration allegory MONSTERS even get a sequel?
2) How is this film, which is being produced by Edwards, go in completely the opposite direction?
3) How, in the frozen ponds of Hell, does this somehow still look awesome despite 1 and 2?!
Look, I
totally get that Monsters was a divisive film; whether by initial design or by limitation, the film is basically a lengthy, mostly silent road-trip that gets invaded by the presence of an ambivalent, almost Godlike race of cthulhi horrors in the final reel. The movie isn't "about" monsters so much as it is about how the world reacts to things it can't understand; natural disaster, the ravages of war, or simply the unforgiving hand of God, but that's part of what made it such a unique experience in the first place. The film was driven by the presence of the concept of monsters, not their direct actions, and that what made it "work" in such a unique way. The very fact that Edwards reportedly crafted all of the CG in his bedroom for weeks on end is nothing short of miraculous, and while I have very mixed feelings about his Godzilla film, I don't think his handling of what the Big G himself represented - or how he was realized - were anything but laudable. Edwards is a talented director, and I say Monsters proves it more than Godzilla does... despite Godzilla, arguably, being better realized in many other ways.
But Edwards isn't directing this one anyway, which appears to be a crazy action movie "about" the conflict in Afghanistan (insofar as the first Monsters film was "about" illegal immigration). The fact that we have a dog fight, and that we're seeing soldiers freaking out off the battlefield gives me hope that this might actually have a point... then again, the first film had some super misleading ads, so maybe what we're seeing up there isn't what we're going to get anyway.
Still, this doesn't look half bad. Go goddamn figure.