While I am officially going on record as saying this movie is cool, it is clearly a road map of just terrible movie making. Boz has a theory that any movie that opens with a narrator can only end poorly. And if the narrator is British, you can multiply the suck by 3%. Well, the opening to this movie is narrated by Malcom McDowell. And the yellow flags hit the field. It starts off much like I AM LEGEND. An uncurable disease called the Reaper Virus killed almost the entire population of Glasgow. Cut to the stereotypical scene of the survivors trying to escape by pushing against a fence covered with razor wire with soldiers pointing their rifles at them. And par for the course, a riot breaks out causing the soldiers to retreat. To a giant 30 ft. wall that has been built around the entire island, effectivley cutting Europe in half. Leaving the people with or without the disease to die within the walls. Very doom and gloom, and the mood starts to get you set into a very serious sort of action film. Maybe a social commentary about our world leaders and how their ineptitude towards disaster are usually all or nothing. You know, Oscar worthy shit.
But then flash forward several years, and we see our hero Eden, breach a freight ship with the aide of her robotic camera eyeball. Which she holds out in her hand to see around corners. And all the seriousness died in the room. It would have been a better idea to have her hold a robotic camera rubber chicken. Eden (played by the oh-so-hot, yet not-so-talented, Rhona Mitra)was actually saved from being walled in by a soldier who gave up his spot on the last helicoptor for her as a child. So she's got a past with the wall. Now she's one of the best black-ops soldiers London has to offer. And Bob Hoskins is her boss. Okay, now we're swinging towards "cool." Because that's what Bob Hoskins is man. Fucking Cool! When the Prime Minister approaches Hoskins to send people into the wall, Eden is his first choice. So her and a rag tag band of soldiers, drivers, and doctors are assembled and breach past the wall for the first time in 22 years. Of course, you and I know that the assembled team is there to serve no other purpose but to be slaughtered and mutilated in the most horrible and grotesque ways imaginable. Thankfully, they don't know that and trundle towards their messy destiny to my great delight.
First stop is a hospital. Where so far the movie has ripped off 28 DAYS LATER, it continues the trend by ripping off ALIENS. The team gets in their virus proof gear (Which look like space suits) and go marching through the maze like hospital. Obviously going for the scare factor, we meet our first gang punk rock soccer hooligans as the cleave and tear their way through the team. Thank Jesus the Carpenter this movie is bloody. This is easily one of the bloodiest movies I've ever seen. And it's the best kind too. The squishy, meaty, everything looks and reacts like splattered ground beef kind of bloody. Needless to say the survivors of the attack are taken away to the underground lair of Sol. Sol is played by Craig Conway. And the best thing I can say about his resume is that he was the lead Crawler in THE DESCENT. A movie I fucking loved. Here, he's the green mohawked leader of the Mad-Max dropouts. I knew that the designes for these guys were goofy, and outrageous, and a complete throw back to the shitty 1980's ideal that the future destroyed America would be over-run by leather wearing punks. but I don't think the pretentious asshole and his bitch girlfriend sitting beside me were aware of that. This is completley a movie worth snickering and chortling at. But they were getting their kicks from the design of the character. And not the good kind of kicks. The kind where you can almost hear them think, "Man this is so not how I would have directed this movie. I would have made so many different creative decisions because unlike these pricks, I'm a real artist that understands what audiences want. Oh that reminds me, I have to be in at Coffee Bean early tomorrow because I'm covering Julia's shift".
Sol, being the benevolent leader that he is, has one of her away team cooked alive while his pet gimp is chained to a wall thrashing with joy, or agony, or whatever the fuck it is gimps feel to get aroused. All the while Eden is fighting for her life with Sol's girlfriend. Sword fighting for her life. With the assistance of MyAnna Burning. Who again, was in THE DESCENT. With MyAnna's help, and the resurfacing of two of her teammates Eden is on her way to see Dr. Kane, the man thought to possess the cure to the Reaper Virus. Which all the survivors are accoutning for. On their way to see Dr. Kane our band of heroes stumble into middle-earth. I swear to you everyone is garbbed in old medieval clothing. A whole civilization full of them. I guess there are several museams in Glasgow that they could have robbed. But that wouldn't even come close to being enough to cloth absolutley everyone. They even had the "scholar's" cap. The black cloth hat with the point on top and the floppy ears down the side. I kind of understand why these folk would resort to traditional old English customs, but it really takes you out of the movie. MAD MAX one minute. EXCALIBUR the next. Then before you know it, GLADIATOR is ripped off when Eden has to fight Tygrus.
I mean Telamon. Dr. Kane's assassin/knight/Russel Crowe ass kicker wanna-be. And naturally Eden hands him his ass on a silver dish. Did you expect anything less from this? She's got a fake eyeball video camera!!
I can't too much further without spoiling the plot. Actually, there really is no plot. But I'm not going to spoil the ending anyway. Except for this one part. There's a guy in a gimp suit tied all crucifix-like to the front of a car. Eden screams "You like pain?" And then forces the car off the road and smashes the crucifixed gimp into a giant rock and explodes. Explodes I tells you!!! Goddamn that's funny.
FINAL ANALYSIS!
This is not going to be winning any awards. For anything. By anyone. The Razzies probably wouldn't even look at this. But sunnuvubitch if this isn't a fun movie. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't have any intelligence or thought. But there is a bit, if not a smidge of love. Love for crappy movies. And courage. Can you name me any other movie to come and be released nation wide theatrically with a scene where a fluffy bunny rabbit gets torn apart by a .50 caliber bullet?
I didn't think so.
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