Actors: Dolph Lundgren, Melanie Zanetti, Matt Doran
Director: Christopher Hatton
Format: Blu-ray, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Dubbed: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number of discs: 1
Rated: R
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Release Date: February 18, 2014
Run Time: 89 minutes
I was actually
surprised at how decent the effects were in Battle
of the Damned, especially considering how ridiculous every other aspect of
the film is. Dolph Lundgren is a far better actor than he gets credit for, especially
being able to handle this material with a straight face. The only saving grace
to Battle of the Damned beyond
Lundgren’s weathered mug is the willingness to throw logic out the window when
creating the script. An absurd addition of fighting robots to the story halfway
through the film is inexplicable and strange enough to keep this from becoming
just another low-budget zombie disaster.
Lundgren plays a
fairly generic role as Max Gatling, a former commando turned mercenary hired to
enter a quarantined zone in Thailand
to retrieve one woman from the zombie apocalypse. This mission costs Max all of
his men, and even when he finds the girl he must still find a way out of the
quarantined zombie zone. This is slightly more feasible when a small army of
killer robots appear from Japan ,
ready to take Max’s orders in killing the zombies. This absurd twist is
laughably fantastical, but this only further highlights how normal zombie
apocalypse seems by comparison.
The effects are
halfway decent, including some of the zombie make-up and death sequences, but
all of the digital alterations can’t help the poor acting. Only Lundgren
remains halfway believable, and mostly does this by doing as little as possible
in each scene. The other actors suffer, and none are helped by filmmaker
Christopher Hatton’s dialogue or direction. The Blu-ray special features
include a making-of featurette.
Entertainment Value:
3/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 3.5/10
Historical
Significance: 1/10
Special Features: 3/10
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