20140314: Horror Review--Attila

Attila

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 85 minutes.
2. IMDB: 2.2/10.0 from 184 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Reviews Yet...' and 0% liked it from 14 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.5/5.0 from 7,328 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Emmanuael Ithier.  Screenplay by Anthony C Ferrante and Emmanuael Ithier.
6. Starring: Cheick Kongo as Nomad, Chris Conrad as Vito, Mikayla S. Campbell as Katie McVie, M. Steven Felty as General Thadeus, Roxanna Bina as Nicks, Emmanuael Ithier as Yorn.


2. Setup and Plot
1. According to IMDb, this picture was shot in Los Angeles, CA, USA.  According to the beginning of the film, the main action occurs in Eastern Europe.  Considering the number of Eastern European and Middle Eastern actors in the film, I was surprised that it was not filmed in Eastern Europe for the cost savings.


2. The Huns, by many accounts, were even shorter than the Romans, were light of weight, and perfectly suited to life on horseback.  In the opening sequence, the Huns were shown with zero horses, traveling and acting only as infantry.  They were depicted in the film as heavily muscled, tall in stature, and reliant on brute strength to win one-on-one battles.  This is in strong opposition to their usual description as light but agile, with exceptional skill in archery and fighting from horseback with swords.


3. The back story of re-assembling the Staff of Moses is just bovine scatology.


4. Given the matters above, the terrible dialog, the stupid acting, and the PC cliches, I was ready to give up on this one at 27 minutes in.  I watched the remaining 58 minutes just to see whether I missed something.


5. So, in this ridiculous setup, part of the Staff has been found in Eastern Europe.  Blood fallen on the case of the Staff re-animates Attila the Hun (well, maybe), who is seven feet tall and stronger than Thor.  This is more nonsense.


6. Will Vito recover the staff segment before Attila really fouls things up? 


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Where was the oversight on this film?
2. One star of five.  Black holes for acting, screenplay, and sound.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 Odd filtering was employed that was strong on blue, green, grey, while weak in red, yellow, orange.  Also, among the cast there were way too many faux blondes, and way too much time spent on the art of gum chewing with one's mouth open.  The random distribution of saliva is so attractive and sanitary; I'm surprised it was not spotlighted in slow motion.


2. Sound: 0/10 The actors were miked well enough.  Unfortunately, they spoke.  The incidental sound and music were almost always jarring or inappropriate.


3. Acting: 0/10 All the actors were terrible at acting in this film.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Absurd, a complete failure.  I really could have done without the vile hallucinations of the 'effective' commander Vito.  Why would General Thadeus trust the Professor?  I would have liked an explanation of that.  The military fights the supernatural without knowing any rules of engagement?  This seems unlikely.  Even better, there seems to be little understanding of chain of command.  During one segment, the number of survivors in Vito's command seems to go up and down like a yo-yo from one scene to the next.  The movie gets stupider and less believable with each passing minute.  The real motivations seem not to be clear until quite late.


5. SFX: 2/10 Pretty poor. Some 1980s SFX were as good.