Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Year: 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After a ravenous virus, a group of scientists studying how to prevent the spread of a rabies plague through the rest of the uninfected humanity by heading out into the wild to search for the infected individual that was at the start of the infection and try to find a cure for the situation.
Review:
This was a rather enjoyable zombie effort. What really works for this one is the fact that the main storyline featured here is a rather enjoyable and somewhat fun take on the zombie mythos. By looking at the idea of how the military and the resulting scientists under their protection are out to discover the possible resource of the infection, this allows the film to look at their procedures and processes in order to carry out their mission which drops us into this one quite nicely. By offering the repeat experiments as well as the background politics between the military and the scientists incorporating the one zombie who never turned that's helping them, there's a rather intriguing setup here that plays into the resulting storylines of their mission to keep them coming.
The other rather enjoyable aspect to this one is the treatment afforded to the infected themselves. Given plenty of impressive attributes to showcase their increased cunning, intelligence and planning with their ability to speak added onto the traditional zombie elements, there's a lot to enjoy with this one. The opening showing him with the ability to talk to them in their own language and have the creatures understand him compares nicely to the concept of the Trojan Horse in regards to the one infected that shows up and engages in the mind-games that are engaged in. As well, the final half-hour here shows the creatures overrunning the facility in massive swarms which provides plenty of action with the series of confrontations with the creatures throughout the base resulting in the fine gore gags usually associated with the genre. These here are what really hold this one up overall.
There are a few flaws to be had with this one. The main issue to be had here is the human drama at the forefront which really isn't that interesting. While it's great to have this one tackling the idea of keeping the couple together while in the midst of their various interactions, overall that's really not that interesting in the long run. The backstage politics about each side arguing over the different options alongside the different opposing forces each trying to assert their control in the situation ends up doing nothing as nobody ends up doing much of anything. The endless rounds of questioning inside the sealed room that should've provided something interesting to their search for the lead infected amounts to just going around in circles, a facet actually mentioned in the film itself.
The other main factor to hold this one back is the rather overuse of cliches and overly familiar tropes within the film. The idea of the military bunker being the center of a dispute being the military looking to overthrow the exploits of a scientist looking for a way to end things is such a common trope that it's at the center of the genre as a whole, and the reliance on keeping them separated from the outset is not a source of high drama. With the insistence on the love story between the different species and the red herring specimen that really has nothing to do with anything going on also being quite prominent here, there's a lot of overly familiar and rather common ideas throughout here. These issues overall are what tend to bring this one down.
Overview: ** 1/2/5
While there are some problematic areas involved here, this one does generate a few solid ideas here that manage to give this some enjoyment in the long run. Give this a chance if you're a hardcore fan of this style of outbreak genre entries or looking for a general zombie effort to enjoy, while those looking for something more than the usual run of genre efforts should heed caution with this one.
Comments
Post a Comment