Fenris Fil

When following the films of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg it's hard not to be underwhelmed when you get to this little number. It seems clear that while Frost may be a walking encyclopaedia of pop culture references, the creativity and flair of his more famous movies likely came from Edgar Wright, because this completely lacks either, but it does have a LOT of references in it. So if you are the kind of person that enjoys movies just because they reference other, better movies, TV shows and comics then this will be for you. If not... Maybe give it a skip.

The story itself is a pretty generic by the numbers, protect the friendly alien story. It could be E. T. , *Batteries not Included, even Short Circuit (If you ignore he's not an Alien). Though those movies have a lot more heart to them. It could also be Bumblebee or Monster Truck or any number of similar stories of more recent years. The only thing different here is the Alien looks like a generic grey type alien.... So basically it's a classic trope with a more generic Alien.

That's really the game this film is playing. It substitutes any originality or heart for tired tropes and just out of the blue references that could have been stuck at any time in the film since they are only there to be references. This is exactly the kind of film I'd expect a pop culture junky to make and perhaps in the late 90's to early 2000's when those kinds of films/shows were relatively fresh and popular (I was a fan of Pegg's own "Spaced") they could have gotten away with it, but by 2011 that was all feeling pretty stale. Roll on to 2023 when I'm making this review and it's still being over done by so called "Creatives" that lack any actual creativity.

Of course those pop culture referencing films of that period were also funny, which helped them a lot. Some even had artistic merit (The first Clerks film for instance). This doesn't have either of those. It's just references, tropes and cameos (Well, one cameo, but it's also a reference).

When the film isn't doing pop culture references, it is basically just stereotyping people instead, because making a character that isn't a hundred percent generic would apparently be beyond Pegg and Frost 's writing partnership.

So yeah, below average. It's shocking to see the gulf between this movie and Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz. Both of those also featured a tonne of references, but actually had a good plot, some really funny moments and... well... style!

This is a strange movie with two major issues. First of all the acting of the lead is famously terrible. Most notably in the shooting spree scene (Hence the title of this review). It's a cheap B-Movie so that's not a deal breaker in itself. The second issue though is the film is about 50-60% a retelling of the first film using the footage of that film and this is not a long film (It even has extra long credits to pad it out).

What that means is that if you have seen the first film, what you get from this is a 30 minute story that follows one character played by the worst actor in the film. No good and you can see why it has that reputation.

However, if you have not seen the first film or just don't remember it, then this really does help to lift up the overall quality. The extra pace it gives the story shifts the focus almost totally away from any character other than the two psychopaths, with just the Mother Superior really being the only other character that has any kind of presence. For most genres that would be a bad thing, but in a slasher movie it just lets you soak in the lowbrow joys of absolute carnage instead.

What this means is while there is now way to look at this film and conclude it is "good", it is actually quite fun and for a B-Movie slasher that is all it needs to be. So, if you haven't seen the first one this is a worthy 5/10 level lowbrow B-movie that will entertain you for the majority of it.

But the fact is, the movie is a sequel. When most people watch a sequel they aren't expecting to spend 60% of it watching the first movie again. That drags the core down, but still a 3/10 is higher than what I expected to score it after seeing the infamous "Garbage Day" scene on youtube.

I haven't played the games and as such went into this not knowing it was a video game adaptation. I guessed it was however pretty early on because this really feels like watching a video game play through. This film only really has one character and has a jarringly distinct three acts that would probably have been better suited as part of a movie trilogy or TV series than a one off movie (Don't expect a sequel any time soon).

The films protagonist is whisked from one action based situation to the next with few chances to catch her bearings and does very little with what time she has between encounters to really develop any kind of personality. In the first act she is joined by her army unit who demonstrate a little personality but are never given the opportunity to make us care about them. Pretty much the first act is there to establish our protagonist. The second act is really where most of the film is and focuses a bit more on the movies secondary character who speaks no English and has has about as much personality as our protagonist. He likes chocolate and is a survivor with bad ass ninja skills. At first he fights with our hero but then they learn to get along to fight the monsters. Pretty straight forward writing but no complaints really, this is the only part of the film I actually liked.

In the final act he is barely present and instead we are introduced to a full on fantasy world team (including a random cat pirate) lead by Ron "Hellboy" Perlman. It would have been nice to spend more time getting to know these wonderful freaks but alas we haven't had random action for at least three minutes so it is on to the ending which seems to have been edited by throwing the film up in the air and attacking it vigorously with a samurai sword. The ending isn't even really an ending. It's just one of those moments where everyone strikes a pose while heading into further action. Honestly I feel like I heard someone scream "Mortal Kombat!" moments before the titles rolled.

Still, while the movie was bad I did think it looked good. The characters, the creatures and the landscape in general (mostly desert though it is) all look the part and on a $60m budget this is still an achievement. Sadly though this movies legacy is almost certainly going to be in how badly edited the action scenes are. Anyway, if you have played the games perhaps there is something here for you, but if you have not I would avoid this one.