Zombies Have Fallen
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Nothing but kids butts. I can’t believe I actually wrote that. Three times now, actually. But this movie made me. I have no idea what I just watched, aside from possible Resident Evil fan fiction accidently getting taken seriously. Aside from the photography and some of the gore, there really wasn’t anything of substance here. It’s not like things were horribly bad, they were just absent or obviously the wrong flavor. The people who needed to do stuff to make sure this didn’t suck missed their jobs. If you’re going to CGI in all the gunfire, that’s not something that you get to Check Off Your List, assign to an intern, and then never review before production. How the fuck do you explain using one of the most obviously integrally suppressed firearms in history in your movie and using the same sound effect as the carbines? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, if this is all gibberish, you don’t deserve to be making zombie movies that involve gunfire. Take your efforts back to the middle ages and do a Zombies Vs. Robinhood or some crap like that. So much of this just lacked. Mostly, it just lacked; but Max, you really gave me something to sink my incisors into. Everything about who you are (in this movie) is everything that should be stood up against a wall and shot like the bitten. If you want the ugly details, Ctrl-F your way through the review notes. But- the horribly ridiculous attempt at hand-drawn CGI helicopters aside, you were the weakest link. By far. Liam, you don’t get a pass either. In fact, considering you only got this due to some relationship with the director, you didn’t make the most of it- for you or for them. A role like this takes pain and hurt, because that’s what these scenarios are made of. That’s why only heros walk out of them. Nothing you did convinced me you were willing to take an owie for the team here. You ran like you were afraid of hurting yourself, you fought like you were afraid to be on screen, you just plain couldn’t provide what was required for this role. Miata, or Kiata, or whatever her name is- I think she was down for SO much more. I bet she was willing to leap out of trees and shit and you were all like “Hey, I have to return these pants to Abercrombie and Fitch, let’s just roll around gently in the moss over there.” A younger or more reckless man should have gotten this role. You’re like watching an unfunny Leslie Nielson going through the motions of a fight scene. Max?? I can’t leave you alone. God, you were awful. A black t-shirt, silver jewelry, and black fingerless gloves? Please come the fuck on! That uniform is as generic as the Men In Black, and they dress that way to be fucking forgettable! Here’s something you shouldn’t forget- don’t take shitty roles just to say you’re an actor! Just like Grampa wouldn’t commit to running, you wouldn’t commit to acting. Who the fuck insisted you get all those close-ups? I demand to know the “need” for that crotch shot. Who the fuck agreed to them? Why? What was the actual movie about? How is it that the Umbrella Corporation hasn’t sued you?
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Raven boasts to Max that he’s been mean to a mutant girl and Max needs to retrieve her.
- The girl finds Liam, the bad guys find them both, Max is unreasonable.
- She can wave her arms and shove people telekinetically. The forest reverberates!
- She can clench her fists and turn people into zombies. The church… well, shit.
- After shoveling us optimistic movie confetti shaped like it could possibly be stomped, like 3-week-old roadkill racoon through a storm drain, into an ending, these assholes have the audacity to try to set themselves up for a sequel.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
I’m not sure what the fuck to write here. Like, the basics COULD be that they’re raised up undead hungry for flesh, but she turned a whole church full of people into zombies by clenching her fists at them, so is this an occult thing? No? It’s telekinesis? Are you sure? This doesn’t seem normal, and considering, well, telekinesis, the definition of normal is pretty broad… no? Definitely zombies? Ok. I mean, you DID use Romero’s “Zombies stand in one place and reach menacingly into a bright light” technique, and those children at the end cut scene DID look equally shittily made up in blue and slightly darker blue smudges like whatever of Romero’s that he didn’t have a budget… I’m pretty sure you turn if you get bit, but… there really weren’t any constant characters that really went through anything this character-developing. I wanna know though- is she a good guy? I’d think not- she turned a whole churchload of people into zombies, so that’s bad. So why was Liam all about protecting her? The zombies have to be bad; I’m sitting here shaking my head. It’s like they couldn’t decide if they wanted the audience to root against the zombies or against Max more. But the point here is that there were not enough of the right (consistent) types of Zombies. There was not enough Zombie action. There was no need to make a movie about a girl with telekinesis, then realize it’s boring, and tack on an artificially inflated zombie/church/brawl in at the end? This wasn’t a zombie movie, this had nothing to do with visions or any of that shit. I wish I had something nice to say.
Where the money went
Where the money went
The only thing you did good here- well, two things- This was pretty well shot. Yes, there was a lot of “waste time by panning over the table” and other film school bullshit, but overall, this was well shot, especially the outside scenes. I think that lighting got overwhelmed when in a constrained space and trying to set the mood, and I strenuously protest against the style of fight filming that you may have invented here. Did you go in and manually remove every 3rd frame to make everything faster and jerkier, but in a different way than just doubling the speed? Bitching about that aspect of the filming (one of the only things I’ve said this movie did well, BTW), I have to again rail against using CGI for gunfire. It doesn’t work. Some money went to the script, I guess, in that they watched all the Resident Evil movies repeatedly. Whoever did sound should be blackballed- this was on par with Monty Python’s horses in The Holy Grail for fucking obnoxiously obvious. The “ruination of classical draw” is probably the best example of sound incompetence, but Max (yeah, gotta come back to you like flies…) Max, you can’t yell your lines in the sound booth regardless of where the scene is supposed to be taking place. White camo fatigues in the Maine or Vermont forests? Really? Henchmen showing identifiable tattoos, but covering up their face with a balaclava? Could have spent that money on accent lessons- not so much so that they’d be correct- I’d have settled for them not swinging wildly from scene to scene. Fuck, I’m getting tired of seeing airsoft guns in movies. You wanna know the best use of money here? It was the walls in Liams room. That wavy-gravy leopard print is the BOMB.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
A righteous hammer. Call it Round Face’s Silver Zombie Hammer. Even if it wasn’t silver. Do it for the Fab Four. But this guy, this priest with the Dirty Harry and the Hammer up his sleeve- don’t fuck with him. I liked him. He enjoyed his role. It was fun. I’m not putting that ridiculous bag-pipe bullshit in here either- what the fuck was that about and where the fuck did that guy come from? Seriously! I know I’m high and shit, but it was like a Jedi-Edit and then the character existed and was in the middle of the fray with an imagination cannon. If this movie had been a hit! IF! Then I’d single out their use of fire extinguishers. No, shooting one won’t clear a hallway of zombies, and people have thought to hit other people over the head with them before, but the movie’s reliance on them was almost swiss-army-knife-like. Oh! Re-reading the review notes- they never actually came into play, but Raven’s fingernails! Man, if you knew you were gonna be in a fucking movie, can’t you take some pride? I’m not great about that shit myself, but I know when it’s important to put in the effort.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
So, fucking strange here, but a couple times (I think, I also rewound a couple things) she ALMOST Vadered some dude. Did the whole arm-lift thing, but just didn’t close the throat. That would have been awesome if done right. I wonder if you can trademark an invisible choke-lift to death? As for the hand reaching up out of the dirt, you know, the RISEN that I’d assume was in Zombies Have Risen, especially so since you included it in your fucking title graphic, there was nothing. Yeah, the zombies… uh… started being zombies when she clenched her fists, but that was pretty understated. And yeah, good point, she did just spend the 2nd half of the movie waving her arms around like interpretive octopus fingerpainting dance, but- look. You promised something and didn’t deliver. Lame.
That was new!
That was new!
So much of this was new, but I don’t think I’m gonna include it in new, because it was a shit mashup that resulted in nothing of value, so I don’t want to give props to anything included. I just re-read my notes on a different level and concluded “Yeah, they pretty much just ripped scenes off from different movies.” I’m not 100% on what my opinion is right now, other than no this didn’t work. Yeah, that fucking bagpipe with the machine gun and flamethrower? The one I totally missed the introduction of? Who just sort of was there sometimes and not other times? Set the fucking thing up! He’s a James Bond type secret agent or something. Don’t just throw him in there! It was really new to not know who to root for, and not in any “I’ve just been out-thought” sort of I See Dead People sort of way, but more of the muddled “he’s a bad guy and friends with that guy so he’s a bad guy, but *he’s* friends with the good guy… Yeah, same mentor, what the fuck ever. Go home with that tired shit.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Damn. Dying here. Really swung for the fences on that last hit, but then panicked and pulled the spoon ½ dropped… Thank god I bailed.
John Northwood. A story. Happy Birthday. Kinda creepy. Not normal eyes.
Looks like she’s been kidnapped. Well, sounds like. It looks like foggy trees, to be honest.
Ok, pay attention. I think, like, it’s been 20 years and we’re supposed to wonder where the crazy eyes baby went. You ask me, as long as it stays away I don’t care.
Raven health care. Raven. They eat carrion.
Pretty good commercial. Super nice teeth.
Newcastle. Where’s Oldcastle?
Dude… doesn’t look like a lady, but he’s wearing rouge.
This guy is called Raven too?
Oh, we have feet on the desk. He’s surly.
Max. You’re a nasty piece of work, Max.
To me, you look kinda bloated, like you drink too much alcohol. And ripped your 5 minutes of prep for this role from watching Boondock Saints. A great movie. Fucking Amazing. Equally good? The like, Heart of Darkness equivalent of it. The documentary they made while filming Boondock Saints. Jesus, that guy makes himself look horrible! Can’t remember his name. I want to say “Jerry Fisher”, but I know that’s wrong. I’m so high I want to google a Jerry Fisher right now and reach out to him. Get his angle on things.
Ok. Max is to retrieve a girl. Used to have telekinetic powers. Mind experiments. Drugs. Control. Side effects. Hallucinations. Black and white photography. Drastic Steps. Property.
Horrible sound control. Max, you wear too much MAXera. Heh.
Max, you need more than that. You need to not be named Heath.
These two men… Max and Raven… they’re SO evil they chuckle about cutting off other people’s heads. They chuckle!! Bad, bad men.
Well shot photography, for the most part.
A flashback escape! An earpiece!
Randal is helping her. She… basically got the Matrix or whatever the name of that movie where the guy can spin bullets around shit treatment- where an earbud talked her out of a top tier mental facility. She didn’t see another person, she met no challenges. So… has she been able to walk out of there this entire time?
Strolling through the woods… I gotta say, if they do the zombies as well as this- shooting and…
Well, there was just a hawk sound and she took off running. And now she’s tired and by a tree.
Just heard the bird again and she didn’t take off running. Oh, it’s a raven, it looks like.
Gretna Green. Ok. We get it.
No, not a church. A bar. With a smoking bartender!
She sees a guy walking out the back, so she follows! The hunt is on! Hungry like a wolf! John Wolf?
Oh, and he’s behind her! A quite bit of Bourne trickery.
That is the best wallpaper ever. Like if a child who loved painting flowers got tasked with paining leopard spots on a shag Jeffrey wavy-wall. I fucking love it!
And this guy… discount…. Uh… Liam Neeson!
She has memory issues.
She took a lot on faith.
He’s not wanna help her.
He sends her down to bar to wait for Randall.
He… holy shit, that guy got slapped hard. So hard his eyebrow is still… seceding. Whatever hit him, that gets weapon of the year.
Some kinda thumb drive message; Help us, Obi Wan!
I can’t focus on his message, his eyebrow is so distracting. Something about how evil Raven is, and how they can’t get the girl back.
Shit. I just spilled coffee on myself. It’s not like I got enough to waste.
Action sounds.
Horrible fingerless gloves. Of course it’s Max.
Sends in the swat team… who fuck with Liam…
Big fight scene that is based around the concept of pointing the camera right at something exactly before or after the action involving that thing happens, so that we never actually see anything happening, just a bunch of reaching and falling backwards and spinning and stuff. Almost Bruce-Lee in it’s… Economy of actual stunt action.
Ok. We’re 18 minutes in and I have a new game. It’s “Wonder who Heath is!” Is he Max? Looks like an effeminate bloat and… doesn’t act? Or Liam, who does a really good job acting? Am I rooting for who here now?
Ok. That wink. Nope.
They do a pretty good job with the CGI machine gun fire, but there’s no brass. Worse, when it comes “time to reload” because of course, all those different weapons run empty at the same time- you can see one guy is dropping a full magazine.
Jesus, Max. You can’t make anything good. Not even a good double cross.
That… looked like George Bush waving around an airsoft rifle. Unconvincingly.
I do like the scene between the hitmen trying to figure out who is actually going to rush the door.
Max, can’t you even afford quality razors? What happened to your skin?
I smell a double cross!
Max, you’re like my Asian wife when she’s sleepy; she’ll have disproportionate number of eye-folds. Stop brooding Max, and for christs sake, don’t ever do anything Christopher Walkenish like that again.
“Well done, John, well done!” I’m not calling this out for it being a good quote, but rather an example of the horrible audio mixing. I can tell the actor was standing in a sound booth 2 inches from the microphone. When he should have been 10-12 at minimum.
And now I can’t hear the fucking conversation between these two in the car.
My word!! Look at Raven’s fingernails!! They’re talons!! And it’s got nothing to do with the role, the actor just has horrible hygiene procrastination issues! Everyone looks shave-burned and he’s got claws!
A massive close-up of Max looking… around the parking lot. Max doesn’t deserve this camera worship. He doesn’t rate this movie, if he’s willing to be this cliché. But stop giving him close-ups. He’s not special. In the least.
Wait in the car…
Paper slips. Liam does not hold a gun correctly. I can’t say what’s wrong, he just… isn’t holding it with the “this can hurt my hands really bad” respect it deserves.
More crappy hand to hand fighting… but they’re friends!
Drawings!
“What is it?” she asks.
“Just take it.” He replies.
(she does)
Jesus, do roofies not exist in this world? WTF about stranger danger?
Ok, we’re all doing shots.
Jazz tinkles.
Hoonted.
Billy, you and your round face…
Demonstration time.
She… made him slowly fall backwards out of his chair. Oh god, what if this power gets into the wrong hands?
Wilson can’t help, but he’s going to donate some gear.
Some of the most gorgeous landscape ever filmed or CGI’d.
But now…. They’re there, and heading off into the woods.
She’s got an MP5, which she has NO reservations against sweeping him with. Once again, she’s holding the gun like a non-shooter. Should have had some training.
We are over 1/3; almost at the ½ mark. And we have yet to see a fucking zombie.
Holy shit, that’s a mansion. I want that as my house. Even if you can literally see through it.
Just had to take a quick break to let my dog out- started thinking about a documentary I set aside in the que to watch with my wife. “Muscle Shoals” If you like old American music- anything from Aretha to Skynyrd, you should check this out. If only to learn who The Swampers were. Man, up there with Punk Rock, you can probably say that The Swampers saved, if not my life, my sanity.
These are the most beautifully manicured ruins I’ve ever seen. It’s like they were just power-washed and then stocked with brand new Home Depot plants.
Oh! And Max is there! Yelling in his sound box again!
Along with his goons! Who may or may not be stock footage!
I feel such sympathy for the cameraman, having to do all this ridiculous shit to try and appease Max’s ego.
Macho dummy talk. Could be Arnold and Bennet.
And there’s the steam!!! Whooot!
Smoke bomb! Liam’s a ninja!
It’s a race! I mean, a chase! I’m winning!
Big shootout in the forest, lots of running and leaping over logs.
All action still being shot in “Point the camera at anything except what’s actually happening” mode.
Guys, guys guys!!! If she’s shooting a suppressed weapon, it can’t sound the same as all the other guns!! And let’s think about how much brass is really going rattle around on this Loam.
Max, you’re not evil. Just only 2 weeks into your P90X though. Not seeing the results yet.
She’s just had a come to Jesus moment, or a real hard push, or maybe gosh darn it, she just reached her breaking point, but she’s got some real resolve and is… going to do something. You can see it in her eyes.
She’s… going to walk forward slowly. In slow motion. Kinda. Like, faked slow motion. As if you had a bunch of guys and wanted to film THE scene from Reservoir Dogs, but instead of filming it and then slowing it down, just told them all to walk at half speed. That’s what she’s doing.
Well, that and disrobing. To the sounds of doom horns.
She had a gun, she doesn’t have a gun, eh, she had a coat, now she doesn’t have a coat…
A goon gets pulled into the underbrush!
A goon rolls down a hill in front of another goon!
She’s standing at the top!
She vogue: make a move’s- and the guy flings sideways.
So far, we got a telekinetic girl. No zombies.
This is like marvel universe fan fiction. Or maybe Star Wars. Choke him!! Come on!!
Ok. Now I’m gonna rewind and count how many goons she “shoves”,
Max, your stupid voice over as if this were a video game only makes my distain for you level up.
I watched again, I think she “shoves” 17 people into unconsciousness. That’s, like, almost an entire school bus full, I think.
Strange measurement metric, yeah.
She’s tired. He’s a fern sprite.
The rest of the school bus of goons shows up. She has been caught. Max, if you had 30 guys available… never mind.
Shit. I think Liam is gonna get it.
Yeah.
Well, no. Knocked out.
And Raven is interrogating him. Liam shows no bruise from taking a stock to the forehead.
Max, put your wiener-knife away. It only makes you look weak. Er.
Raven, stop talking. We know you’re evil, we know you were mean to her.
We’re back re-using the same explanation black and white? As if we forgot that you experimented on her mind? Raven? Are you senile? ‘cause we’re not and we’ve covered this topic already…
Fabricated looped memories. Alice, anyone? Jesus, Umbrella probably already got lawyers salivating over this one.
And the mansion ruins thing? Ok. Mike Tyson likes pigeons. I get it.
Max? Your bicep tattoos are pathetic. They date you. Like your Billie-from-Green-Day hair.
Can’t hide your fratboy douchebag beard or obviously dyed hair. Been spending time in the gym though, especially on those delts, eh?
Tattoo some dated, faded crap on them, eh?
Raven is gonna correct his mistake? That is so Raven!
They’ve got the machine that goes Ping.
Blue light typing. The wave of the future.
Dark room sitting. Woo-woo-woo sounds.
Beginning the procedure.
Bad memories.
Nose flaring.
Beep-Beeping.
And she’s had enough. She’s out. Alarms, fuzzy screens, the whole bit. Everything that can be done cheaply, that is.
Ok, she’s even using telekinesis to open car doors. But she has to pause and pose and then wave her arms around. Be easier just open the damn door already, like a normal person.
That car is not available in the states.
The patient is gone.
Liam got the drop on Raven!
Max wants the worst for everyone! Except himself! He wants all the camera for himself though. ALL the camera.
And one choking plea like that and they’re willing to work together? Please! Hasn’t Max shot Liam at least once by now?
She’s got a GPS on her somehow. Making a run for the Scottish boarder.
Officially 3/5 through the movie (do the math, you daft idiots- we’re more than half over!) and no fucking zombies.
Drone footage, tunnel footage, clicky clicky bong bong
No, I want THAT as my house. Jimminies.
And… she just walked into a wedding? Is that her as a blond? Is that Round Face?
WTF going on? I think that’s Round Face.
Max, you can’t even pull off “Riding in a helicopter” correctly.
The lucky couple gets to kiss, and then our girl starts making fists, and then another guy who could also be Round Face starts getting a headache and falls over.
Liam enters the building!
Just had to hit pause to try to A: understand what the fuck I’m seeing, and B: not end up wearing any of this cereal I’m eating as a snack. I love raisin bran. But here’s the secret. No company makes it correctly. You have to buy Heritage Flakes- the kind that’ll cut the insides of your mouth right out of the box, they’re so crunchy- and then add raisins to the flakes yourself. It’s a little more time-consuming, but as a life hack for a stoner who really only wants the best snax, I highly recommend it.
Peanut butter is really good too.
Ok, uh… So, she’s at a wedding, which I think is really happening, but it’s happening at a place she’s pre-programed to go? And then once there, she makes fists a bit and some people get headaches and suddenly one rushes Liam who shoots him and then she makes more fists and erryone done be turning into zombies?
She plays the invisible organ, sets one hell of a smirk, and then Liam is charging unconvincingly down the isle while all the wedding guests are now zombies, which they demonstrate by growling and reaching a lot without actually getting out their chairs.
All these people are lurching and growling like zombies, but I can’t see any anything to show for it. No blood, no scary eyes… taking this one on faith, I guess!
We didn’t need to see that shot of Max’s crotch. Or any of this artfully lit Max.
Now the church is filled with Zombies Proper. These have red on them, and evidence of bad things happening to them. Which, of course, happened conveniently off-screen. But they’re looking like zombies now.
Didn’t see that coming! Round Face is actually the preacher, and he’s got a .44 or something, and he ain’t (letting them) go out like that!
Lotta fake automatic weapons shooting at B/B+ level zombies
Liam still holds the gun as if it were a small animal to be protected
And… a bagpiper. Where the bride and groom were.
Except… he pulls the bagpipes off his shoulder and begins machine-gunning the crowd of zombies with it. Really like when I saw Bob Dylan. He was drunk and machine-gunning the crowd with his guitar.
Interesting. Unconvincing.
Liam and the OTHER Round Face are defending a hall. For some reason.
No, pretty sure fire-extinguishers can’t be used as panacea grenades.
Umm… I’m not sure what’s going on. Liam is outside talking to a hand-drawn helicopter.
Uh… really old car… fleeing…
Goddamnit! If it’s got a fucking silencer on it, you can’t use that fucking sound effect! IDIOTS!
What is it about every man in this movie having horrible skin?
“Aaron! Clean up on Isle Two!” Ok, I mean, kinda funny. Definitely not expected.
I think the bells ringing sound as there’s drone footage of the village means that the… whatever she did… has spread.
Ok, that’s kinda creepy. Always good for a shock when the parent gets it from their own kid.
Are these fast zombies or lumbering zombies? ‘cause so far, most have been lumbering, but that shot through the mirror (which contributed nothing and was very very obviously set up and then someone yelled “GO”) gives us a sprinting, flailing aggressive zombie.
Max, you’re not Stallone. Don’t ever squint your eyes like that again.
Extra money in the CGI budget? Let’s shoot a zombie with night-vision in the middle of the day!
Come on! Blue shirt zombie knocked Liam down and then waited for a 10 count… These fast or slow?
“I’ve never shot anybody before.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Ok, bit of a jump. Good!
The priest is still playing Dirty Harry. Even shooting gangster-style. I guess I would too.
Out of ammo, with another dozen to go. Would have saved one.
He holsters it? I like his style.
He’s got a hammer up his sleeve? I really like his style!
A bit of good brawling, interrupted with a bit of humor that misses. It’s the wrong category humor for what’s already been established for this movie.
Turns out the bagpiper is still alive, but out of ammo. Where the fuck did he come from? Did I miss something? I’m not that high…
So much of the zombie work here follows the early Romero style of getting a crowd of pretty much made up zombies, and then have only one harsh light on them, and have them kinda menace-you-in-place while the camera zooms in and out and waves around a lot. The overall effect is scary- I mean, Romero. But when overused, you begin asking yourself “Why is that one bald guy ALWAYS 2nd from the left when they show… and you realize you’re seeing a loop. Again.
The bagpipe turns into a flamethrower. More than meets the eye. I’d like to get the Dropkick Murphy’s opinion on this one.
Guy doesn’t act like he’s waving a flamethrower into a crowd of zombie to save his life. Not sure what that *should* look like, but this is plain lackadaisical.
So Liam just recruited this random dude in a fluorescent yellow visibility vest- we’re going to call him Dan- and now he’s patrolling his neighborhood, shooting zombies.
These are middle-fast zombies, I guess we gotta call them.
Here she comes, doing the fake slow motion walk again…
And she shoves Raven and Max’s helicopter down into the ground!
But not hard enough to kill them. They have had smudges rubbed on them to signify surviving a helicopter crash.
Lotta looking at each other…
And Max pulls a knife and begins running at her. This appears to have been shot before he did P90X for 2 weeks. She’s running at him.
There’s a brick building.
Raven puts on a coat in an echo chamber.
Liam runs around a lot. I think he’s trying to find the rest of the cast. Where the fuck was I supposed to be again?
The sound effects… my god! Liam is walking and EACH. STEP. IS. AN. INHUMANELY. LOUD. CLACK.
A bloodied Max bursts into a building. Nice.
That *looks* like a bite…
Liam follows him in…
Who’s the good guy here? Who’s the bad? Um… SHE created the zombies, so why are Max and Liam still beefing when there’s zombies to be killed? Use the bong to get along!
A scuffle, camera tries to be kind to both actors
A fire extinguisher gets used again.
Raven ain’t looking so good.
She’s really developed an interesting accent. CON-trul.
She’s making the most out of this opportunity to act. The accent is ‘orrible though, guvna!
Liam and Max can’t get enough of each other.
She’s banging Raven around, and Liam beats up Max.
Max, don’t emote with your eyes ever again.
Max, you might think you’re not done yet, but truly, you never started. You’ve been pretending to do the thing this entire time.
3 minutes of the camera fawning over Max’s death.
Man, this is shot so dark I can barely see what’s going on.
Liam is getting all George Bush again…
She wants to shoot Raven, Liam would prefer if she doesn’t.
Liam… is pontificating.
“I can be the family you never had.” Is this really a safe thing to be saying to a disturbed teenage girl with abandonment issues?
She decides not to shoot Raven, but in the time it takes her to walk over and hug Liam, Raven makes it to his gun (without moving) and shoots her in the back timed perfectly to fall into Liam’s arms.
I think she just hand-motioned and broke Raven’s neck?
Then touched Liam and he passed out?
Waking up to helicopter sounds…
Hold up. Those two helicopters looked like shit- they were on vectors, an impossibility in the real world, but they didn’t look like hand-drawn art by a 1st grader. Did you get a bonus for the CGI budget? Use two different subcontractors?
Liam looks like an older, homeless-er Simon Pegg.
W7 OWL.
Liam tip-toes upstairs…
Steps on a baby picture. That’s gotta be bad luck.
Teddy bear on bed.
Liam finds her bleeding in the garden, and he’s not upset about the zombies or anything.
“If you love me, you’ve got to let me go. Will you stay with me? I don’t want to be alone.” The fucking Clash couldn’t have written better lyrics. “ES DOBLE!”
And they sit on a bench through one fade-out…
Sound, you idiots! Sound! If you’re setting the tone with a slow classical draw, you CANNOT just mute it because someone on screen is exhaling. The rest of the scene still needs ambiance! I honestly thought my Wi-Fi had hiccupped that was so bad.
Carrying a girl’s corpse in circles…
Birds flying around
6 months later (‘cause the screen told me so)
Liam in an apartment looking ill at ease.
A car outside. This is thrilling!
A walk near water.
A phone call.
Liam is starting a new league of bounty hunters.
Swans.
Jesus, doesn’t this movie ever fucking end??
Liam’s phone rings.
An extremely pushy gentleman insists on putting the call through to someone else.
It’s her saying his name. She sounds like she needs help.
He goes driving off into the distance to save her.
He drives in 2nd gear with it pegged to sound like he’s racing without actually speeding.
Ok. Max was Tony Gardner. Tony, you need to do better.
A post credits scene.
Cleaning woman at the church… finds an entire wall lined with poorly made-up zombie children holding their arms out very unconvincingly. They advance awkwardly and very very differently towards her… she backs up… into some guy obviously wearing a retail Halloween mask. And then it’s kids butts. Nothing but kids butts.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
Thoughts? I haven’t had any coffee. I’ve smoked a tad, but not enough. More on that later. I’m hungry, too. I need to get some coffee, but here’s my tale first.
I don’t think it happened, but the idea of it makes me happy, so I’m going to tell a short story about something that didn’t happen to me. Remember when I was dreaming and kung-fu kicked the table and broke all the bongs? Well, afterwards, both my wife and I went online and purchased some more.
As in, my wife went online and bought some that she’d been look at, I separately went online and bought a couple that I’d been looking at, and then later when we realized we had 4 pieces inbound, we laughed and laughed. We have fun. We do silly things.
And I think I said also, maybe in a different one, about how my wife had been smart and 2-day shipping’d them, but I was still waiting… Today I got two emails from Smoke Cartel announcing that my packages had been delivered. I think it’s strange that they wouldn’t bundle stuff, like MJ Arsenal did, but I don’t care, I got two bongs in the mail! (Now I just need B Real to send me an ounce in the mail)
Yet when I pulled my pants up and my socks off and went outside, there was only one big brown package stuffed in our mailbox. I was all like “YAY! HAPPY!” so I ran inside and opened it and found a great little blue “Ice Bong” that’s too small to accept regular sized ice cubes.
So, not sure about how that’s supposed to work, but yay deceptive marketing, and yay you get what you pay for. Thing was cheap. But there was only one piece in the box.
I checked the emails again and realized that I was missing a package. And this is what happened. When my mailman pulled up and realized that he had two large packages for one mailbox, he noticed that they were both from Smoke Cartel. And he smiled a little half-lidded smile to himself, stuffed one package into my mailbox, and set the other aside to deliver tomorrow. “He can only use one bong at a time, and this way, he gets to have That New Bong Experience tomorrow when I drop off this other one.”
Just like that, he saved himself the walk to my door. And to be honest, I’m pretty happy with this one that he did deliver. Although like I said, you can’t actually put any ice cubes in this ice bong, it hits really smooth. Considering that it’s design is primarily a flower-smoking piece, I’m pretty happy with it and totally looking forward to tomorrow when the mailman gets around to delivering the 2nd package.
It’s got the recycler in it, so I’ve got high hopes. I’ve resolved myself to it being smaller than I anticipate, which is a hard thing to get settled with. I’m used to 4 foot bongs and huge Graffix plexiglass-and-tube behemoths, and the theory behind dabs is specifically to not have all that dead air that you have to inhale before you start pulling your hit. Same difference in you don’t want as many small purifying bubbles, since you’re not removing solids from smoke, instead, you just want to cool the fuck out of the vapor before it hits your throat.
This, I thought to myself, an Ice Bong ought to be good at. But since I don’t have an ice-crusher yet, I have yet to actually use this thing as it ought to. But that’s ok. I’m gonna go get some coffee now. (Samuel L. Jackson) “Well, sheeeeeet.” I got one last cup after this. Should be enough to get me through.
Starting early tonight, but I didn’t do shit but read Sedaris and the Reacher series all day. So I got me my Culture, and I got me my coffee, and I got me “Zombies Have Fallen”. I checked that it’s all capitalized that way.
The picture shows a sorta Resident Evil looking heroine surrounded by what look like spinny-winds, especially around her hands, like she was waving the gun she’s holding in circles really fast. Behind her is a gorgeous representation of the British Flag, up close you can see inserted combat imagery in her colours.
The O in Zombies of the title is a raised up reaching hand, so we’ll see if we have anything interesting to add to the Can I Get A Hand? section of the autopsy. They got the tagline “Vengeance runs deep”, which sorry- gets me thinking about submarines. Run silent, run deep. Das Boot! “A young woman who possesses the supernatural powers and visions of an upcoming apocalypse is aided by a retired bounty hunter who must protect her from those who wish to use her abilities for evil.”
See, it doesn’t take my degree in Shakespearian literature to figure out that there’s something just not quite right with that sentence. Just say it out loud, and you find yourself wondering “Is… she… having the… apocalypses’ visions?” If so, how the fuck is that HER fault?
I’d think something as big as the end of days would have had enough time to get things right, and part of that is knowing that your shit is secure and that your visions are, like, where they ought to be. Man. Call me… Mr. Black.
So like I didn’t say, she looks startled, too. Why does the bounty hunter have to be retired? If he’s doing stuff like this, it sounds like he’s working, but is it really bounty hunting if it’s pro-bono? Do you still call yourself a bounty hunter if you’re working a protection job like this?
Wouldn’t “mercenary” or “hired gun” or “shoot’m up guy” have all worked as well as “retired bounty hunter”? Or is this just your way, Sam Hampson, of warning us that one of the leads is going to be OLD? The other thing I got looking sideways at here, Sam Hampson, is that it really looks like you gave a role to a family member out of nepotism, and unless Heath is a really good actor, well, Sam, you done fucked up.
(I’m not sure if that’s actually accurate, does it only apply generationally, or can in be inter-sibling?) ruins lots of movies ‘cause real actors and actresses never got the chance to audition for the big roles. Heath, I hope you’re up to it.
Other thing I gotta say before I get the not-ice-bong-smoke-on is… uh… shit. This is the 2nd time I lost this point. Oh! The whole “Supernatural powers” thing really has me thinking of that awesome movie where the mad scientist is doing all the experiments on the zombies in the back of the truck and the girl can mentally control the zombies and there’s the awesome scalpel hiding scene… is that that Australian one? Where the zombies breathe out, like, methane? Wyrmwood? Road of the Dead? I think it’s that one that ends with the girl essentially going Jesus on the zombies.
At first, I really resisted the movie moving in that direction, but once I’d accepted that the director had something they wanted to show me, I sat back and watched, and it turned out being a whole lot better than I thought it was going to end. Oh! Yeah, it is Wyrmwood, ‘cause they’re all, like, chained to the bottom of a truck and then the short guy I think has himself get bitten so he can kill or distract the bad guy or something. That remains one of my favorite movies, and this already reminds me of it.
It also reminds me of the Sex Pistols, which is always a good thing. God save the fucking queen; this coffee is kicking in! Whoooot!! Gonna rip another one and then press play on this 3-star optimism gamble! Whoops. Just realized that I’ve been smoking Indica. (yawn)
Come on coffee! It’s all in my head! I will say this about this little non-ice-bong; it does a decent job filtering the yuck flavor out of some super cheap Orange Tangie shatter I bought too much of. Mixed with a couple other dabs, you can’t taste the really-off Tangie foul. Yoiks! Those were two big’uns! I also want to point out that I’m paying (cough cough cough) $1.99 for this. Go team go!