The Spooktacular Eight #19: Dead Trigger (2017)

Generic zombie movie with Dolph Lungren?

What if it’s THAT and also a live action adaptation of a videogame you’ve never heard of?

YAY.

Even YAY-ier when the videogame is a generic as hell mobile free-to-play smarthphone FPS, generic but popular enough to get a sequel… and a live action film adaptation.

There is a bit of wit in the premise as yes, there’s the usual zombie apocalypse, but it leads to the government making a videogame about zombies in order to recruit the top-players for real life zombie massacring military exploits, as they need to cut through the undead hordes to reach some scientists that may have found a cure for the zombie virus.

So it’s kinda, a bit, kinda like Ender’s Game, but way stupider, and also not that original as i’m pretty sure there’s at least another movie made earlier, i think just called Hunting Grounds (my UK DVD release has it retitled as Zombie Hunters”), with the same “recruiting the gamers for fighting the supernatural menace”, though without embarassing Twitch channels.

I still have to got around to that so i can’t say for sure but then again need i recall the 2009 film called “Gamer”? Let’s just say the Dead Trigger film it’s not entirely original, regardless of how you slice it, who cares, i doubt many even knew Dead Trigger was originally a game to begin with.

And the “let’s recruit people that play VR games” angle really isn’t used in any interesting or significant way, only to get some stereotypes and random ass characters into the suicide squad in question, it becomes quickly showed aside because the movie it’s more interested in being an off brand Resident Evil wanna-be, and just incredibly generic as hell in all regards for a zombie flick.

Hordes of zombies that are not silent somehow managing to sneak up from nowhere to the back of an elite trained soldier when the script wants to kill him off (or bite him so we can have him sacrifice himself by being blown up with the zombies or some self-sacrifice shit)? Check.

Dumbass, stupid and flavorless characters? The inevitable, seen coming from miles away double-cross at the hand of the evil CEO of the multicorporation set on betraying everyone and sell the potential cure for the virus? A super-mutant fruit of the very same company’s experiments?

For a bonus round, there’s also a priest that believes the undead are a punishment from God, just to completely fill the cliches bingo card, the cornucopia of stock conflicts, betrayals and predictable plot twist that you can easily all imagine and easily guess with a high rate of success.

Acting is mediocre, with even the top named actors in it just doing the bare average, at best, the other ones not so much, but at times the special effects, even some of the gore is quite decent, honestly it’s not a bad production but most of the time it’s hard to forget you’re watching basically a lesser version in every regard of Paul. W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil live action films.

those weren’t really good movies either, but this is the bootleg version, the one with less money, lesser actors, lesser anything, really, making Dead Trigger the subpar movie you’d expect it to be, just subpar, not atrocious but one i would skip still, since it’s so tiresome in its predictability too.

Hilariosly though it ends with a cliffhanger ending, like yeah, mate, it’s a miracle this one got made, Dead Trigger 2 with Jason Statham isn’t gonna happen, not unless you get a lot more money on the project or if by the time it happens Staham won’t be senile, bored and/or strapped for cash enough.

Resident Evil: Death Island (2023) [REVIEW] | Code Vendetta X

Since it’s still summer-ish and we won’t have time for it this october, i feel it’s time for me to complete (until a new one comes out) my coverage of the Resident Evil CG films, after tackling the Netflix CG series and then doing a retrospective on the previous CG animated films.

From the title i’d assume its either based on Code Veronica or RE Revelations 2, but nope, there are echoes of that, but this is actually a direct sequel of the last, Resident Evil: Vendetta.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Monster Hunter (2020) | Isekai Hunt

Yeah, we just got this one in theathers now, once again delayed due to the pandemic.

Preface: i know a bit about Monster Hunter, but not that much, as the franchise it’s one of those i should be really into, but somehow it never clicked with me.

But still, you should know what to expect: it’s another big-budget live action adaptation of a Capcom IP directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, as the Resident Evil movie series did bring a lot of buckaroos, so let’s do it again, and of course cast Milla Jovovich as the lead, i would be surprised if the director didn’t cast his wife for these roles.

And let’s get this out of the way: yes, it could have took place in the fantasy world alone and still deliver on the monsters and action, but nope, so in order to make it more “palatable” to all audiences, let’s have a US military unit get isekai’d into the Monster Hunter world, finding the guns useless on these giant monsters, and having to adapt to dual blades, maces and more “primitive” weapons that actually can damage these things. All while roaming a mostly desert land, searching for a way home.

And sequels.. that WILL probably be made.

To be honest, while the plot is a shining example of Hollywood cowardice and spineless scripts, the movie itself it’s not that bad. It’s dumb as a brick, written as such, but the CG for the monsters looks good, there’s a bit of horror, it adapts fairly ok a lot of elements from the games, preserving the basic gist of the thing, and it’s entertaining.

Not good, not smart, but entertaining enough, like MOST of the director’s Resident Evil movies. Also, it has Ron Perlman with a hilarious “afro Meatloaf” hairdo. XD