20141108: Action Review--Battle of the Damned

Battle of the Damned

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 88 minutes, action, adventure, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.5/10.0 from 2,120 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No critic reviews yet,' and 14% liked it from 186 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on the SyFy channel.
5. Written and directed by Christopher Hatton.
6. Starring: Dolph Lundgren as Max Gatling, Melanie Zanetti as Jude, Matt Doran as Reese, David Field as Duke, Jen Sung as Elvis.


2. Setup and Plot
1. From IMDb and RT statistics, it seems few people saw this, and very few liked it.  Also, why is Dolph Lundgren in this mess?


2. A virus escapes from a research facility in Southeast Asia. The virus turns people into fast zombies. The surrounding city is quarantined. Max and his team are hired to rescue some rich fellow's daughter, who is alive behind zombie lines.


3. Now and then one sees robots striding down the streets.


4. Fast zombies and robots and Dolph.  How could this film miss?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Zombies, killer robots, Dolph Lundgren, but badly assembled.
2. One of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 1/10 Lots of hand-held shaky photography in all its dominant weaknesses.  Stupid camera angles, hideous lens flare, bizarre framing choices, such as tight close-ups of body parts.  I suppose the restricted palette (white, grey, black, plus muted greens and blues) had some purpose.  However the palette took away much of the shock of spilled blood.  This neutralised the impact of the zombie versus human and zombie versus robot fights.


2. Sound: 2/10 The sound track seemed to be from the lower end of amateur public domain properties.


3. Acting: 2/10 I still like Dolph Lundgren, but I hope he gives up lead roles in action films.  The other actors need to keep their day jobs.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 There were lots of unconvincing zombie deaths.  Having six people holed up in a mansion that's proof against zombies seemed ridiculous.  The dialog was terrible. The Duke character and his little fiefdom were absurd.  It was dreadfully boring; the two hours (on SyFy) seemed like five.