This can be summed up with "HAHAHAHHAHAHA". It's a gem in that it's so far removed from the casual B movie it ran through the alphabet and looped back to guilty pleasure B+. It made me laugh out loud which is rare.
The movie is such a weird combination of cheesy, bad and predictable writing, lame action coreography (I'll give examples), weird empty pauses (camera pans to sky for what seems like ages) and unfairly good quality lighting, camera setup and framing compared to everything else. It takes itself super serious which makes it hilarious when what is happening and what is said is preposterous. Most actors took this seriously and it makes it all the more jarring when the dialogue is either cringy or nonsensical. The bad guys are cartoony as shit and some of the acting is just bad - and the mismatch is hilarious.
The action plays out like a side scroller game (figuratively) where the guards at the start come at the antagonist one by one and basically fall onto his knife. They don't radio in, noone takes out a gun against the apple eating knife wielding baddie - they just follow a script of falling to his blade. This could be the script to an action parody but the director plays it straight. What is weird is that if one were to pause the movie at any time it would look great. Like the scene set-up is genuinly good.
OH OH, I almost forgot to mention the music. It's not bad per se, but it's the kind that is overly intense and instead of the action being better it comes off as severly underwhelming according to the rythm and intensity of the music. If it's a sad take you'll be hearing something overly emotional.
The version I watched on Prime had some weird dubbing going on. The lip movement seems to correspond to what is said (most of the time), but the synching is sometimes off or it's clearly been recorded afterwards so it doesn't match either the lip movement, scene intensity, mood or volume necessary for some of the characters.
Some of the sound effects... Laughing as I type. Specifically the antagonist's slow "click-clack" ominous walk is pure comedy gold. It's like Pablo Francisco did the sounds onomatopoeically in a studio while watching the movie.
The story itself is a combination of too much exposition and nonsensical details that have nothing to add to either the plot or the character depth.
In short it's phenomenal and highly recommended watch with friends.
I think this might be my first review in 10 years.
