Dead Rising: Watchtower

It would've been difficult to place a whole movie inside a mall and make it interesting enough ... oh wait: Dawn of the Dead already did that and succeeded! Which might have been one if not the main inspiration for the video game "Dead Rising" (there have been a couple of "sequels" to the original game up to this moment).

Like the games you can assume that there will be more movies. Especially if they are successful. The two main characters here are very good looking, which is "dealt" with very early on. A nice touch even if an obvious one. The action is more than decent and the story moves along nicely. Aspects from the game (building weapons McGuyver style) are also present ...

Dead Rising games don't exactly have the most serious adventure or horror story. After all, this is the franchise that has the idea of strapping battery into wheelchair to make an electric battering ram. It operates in this often ludicrous logic, although it also tries to shoehorn a cumbersome amount of narrative and plods the pace in result.

The story follows Chase, an ambitious reporter who is taping in the medical center aid. Zombrex, a medicine to stop zombification, is introduced and administered in this downtown site. Unfortunately, accident occurs and Chase finds himself scrambling to survive and get the word out. It does resemble the set-up of the games as one person is trapped in large setting.

There are multitudes of problem in writing. It may mimic the appearance, but the script is tumbling between comically ridiculous and over-the-top misplaced drama. At one point, it adds military propaganda which contradicts the supposed quirky style. The game itself doesn't venture too much into thriller and this is a movie where it opens with clown zombie, so the drama feels very detached.

Acting is a miss most of the time. There's barely any character worth rooting for as they are either firmly one dimensional or simply annoying. The original hero Frank West is relegated to a crude talk show, but then the movie introduces Dennis Haysbert, a veteran actor to build conspiracy subplot. It's as though the movie takes the combining gimmick from the game too literal and throws tons of ideas to what sticks.

Thankfully, the action is pleasantly done. Cinematography is good, definitely better than most game inspired movie. It often creates fine spectacle, especially in one particular continuous shot. Practical effect and CGI work better than expected as well, delivering dismemberment and bloody scenes with fine commitment. There's more effort invested on the violence than anything, which is fan pleasing, at the very least.

With a stuttering pace and two hours runtime, the movie does feel bloated. However, for fans of horror or the game, there is plenty of gleeful and numbing carnage here.

This latest zombie outbreak movie has a couple run from a quarantined zone after a government vaccine fails to stop the spread of the undead. Survivors try desperately to find a cure, while typical mayhem surrounds them.

This was seemingly based on a video-game. It contains most of the usual zombie action you will have come to expect and really doesn't have too much to differentiate itself from the pack. Tonally it plays things for laughs some of the time but mostly goes for a relatively straight treatment. I suppose one of the most distinctive elements of this one is the running commentary from a newsroom. From here, a survivor from a previous outbreak who wrote a book about it offers his pearls of wisdom to the nation. On the whole, while this was quite a good idea, I never felt it was as funny as it should be. Aside from this, it's business as usual with hordes of zombies rampaging through an infected city, with a small group of survivors, government troops and criminals making up the numbers. There is a reasonable amount of variety to proceedings to keep things interesting enough and there are even some impressive technical moments like the attack around the bus, where a long unbroken camera shot follows the action up, down and over the action. But the film does start to outstay its welcome after some time, not helped by it clocking in at nearly two hours which seemed way in excess of what was needed. Overall, passable stuff but nothing too great either.

At an event where people who have been bitten by zombies are waiting for their anti-zombie injections (which they must periodically take) a reporter, out to make a name for himself in the news business, has an argument with his camera woman over his exploitive and sensationalistic idea of news reporting, and they go their separate ways. She to leave the scene, and he to sneak into a tent to take secret pictures where medical personnel are administering the anti-zombie injection for those who have been bitten. He's present when --for some reason-- the drug does not work and all hell breaks loose. On the run for dear life, he teams up with a hot brunette of the model variety with whom he had an embarrassing encounter earlier to the amusement of his camera woman.

Though this movie is not an "outright" comedy (one with a lot of blunt silliness and slapstick, for example), it is no doubt a horror comedy; played a bit more seriously and deadpan. It has some amateurish flaws of execution, but is more forgivable since it is a comedy and you can't take it seriously anyway. As well, you want to root for people who aren't part of the Hollywood establishment who make a decent effort to entertain you. The main flaw, I thought, was those narrow escapes or close calls where the zombies or bad guys clearly had ample opportunity to bite or do bad things but the would-be victim got away. Some of them doing so after the camera cuts away to another scene during the attack or threat and returns to see them still unharmed.

Nonetheless, this movie is still entertaining and therefore worth your time. Watch out for the live news broadcast with the anchorwoman and her celebrity guest zombie expert. It is reminiscent to me of something you would see on Saturday Night Live, if you ever watched that show. It is well done and funny without seeming to try to be. At the end, this movie seems to promise a sequel. I look forward to it. Love, Boloxxxi.

Hubby says 'worth a watch but should have left it at the game'! I say 'worth a watch...the rating of 5.2 put me off...but watched anyway. Zombie acting wasn't as good as I'd have liked ( but when you have watched walking dead, it's pretty hard to follow) there are a few times when you are literally screaming at the screen because the main character is standing around when a 'normal' person would have either s##t there pants/died/or got the f##k outta there. Overall half decent film.