Director: Philip J. Cook
Year: 2003
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After nearly dying in a car accident, a down-on-his-uck artist is drawn into a Purgatory world where he and several other lost souls like him are brought together into a fight against a desperate fight against an oppressive ruling figure looking to overtake the world and does what he can to help them succeed.
Review:
This was a massively enjoyable and fun entry with a lot to like about it. Among the better features of this one is the seemingly elaborate and complex story that manages to bring about some rather intriguing work throughout here. With the initial setup involving the trip into the other world and coming across the group who are fighting to regain control of the dimension from an overlord ruler and his scores of minions scattered throughout the dimension looking to help him carry out his plans. This introduces us to the group fighting to stop him against the cruel overlord and provides enough of a backstory about the situation that there’s a solid attempt at building up this section of the universe and who each of the opposing groups is so that it’s got everything set up from the start for a solid fantasy-style quest for a starting point.
In turn, that allows the film quite a lot of intriguing action involving the journey to carry out the mission. Full of car chases, shootouts, close-quarter gunfights, and all manner of confrontations within the universe presented here, it keeps this one moving smoothly from one battle scene to the next in an attempt to tell this kind of epic story between good and evil. It helps the cheesiness level of what’s going on that everything looks distinctly cheesy due to the level of CGI-generated settings and sequences that give a great impression of the kind of alternate universe they’re operating in. given the high-scale concepts at play, especially leading into the full-scale assault for the finale where they finally charge into the headout lair of the warlord which not only brings that kind of cheesy setpieces but also some emotionally-charged sequences. These give the film quite a lot to like overall.
There isn’t much here to hold this one back. Its biggest issue is the simplistic nature of the scope and scale here being so ambitious that it has to resort to such obvious means of enhancement to tell this story. It’s quite obvious that this was a low-budget effort and many tricks are used to help this out but any time anything with any sort of proper scale is needed the whole thing is accomplished with some of the cheesiest-looking CGI imaginable which looks somewhat ludicrous due to the sheer quantity of these scenes featured. It’s all fun enough for what’s going on but is so cheesy and silly it’s hard to overlook it as being a genuine flaw against it rather than just ending up being a factor to deal with.
Overview: ***.5/5
A highly effective shot-on-video effort, there’s a lot to like with this one which manages to hold it up over a few minor drawbacks that don’t mean much in the long run anyway. Give it a shot if you’re intrigued by what’s going on here, appreciate this kind of shot-on-video efforts, or are fans of the style here while most others out there should heed caution.
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