EvilNed
04-Jan-2011, 01:45 AM
About a year ago I bought a film at a sale called "The Vanguard". It's supposed to be some post-apocalyptic zombie movie.
I'm hesitant to even calling it a movie.
It's incoherent. Amateurish. Pretentious. Ugly...
Has anyone seen it? Did anyone else fall for the rather cool text on the DVD?
The plot, axed from some site:
"In an apocalyptic future where the human race is poised on the brink of extinction and science has created the ultimate abomination of nature, a lone hunter gatherer realizes the essence of his being while fighting to survive. The year is 2015: the world's petroleum reserves have been depleted due to the oil wars, and the planet has fallen into a hopeless cycle of death and destruction. In an effort to remove the less desirable components of the human population, a powerful organization known only as The Corporation set into motion a heinous depopulation program. But The Corporation didn't expect their scientists to revolt, and in a desperate attempt to save the human race the disgruntled intellects created a drug that reverts normal humans into primitive, instinct-driven beasts known as Biosyns. Biosyns are virtually blind, relying almost entirely on scent and sound to stalk their prey. Max is a young man who lives by himself in the wilderness. Most of his days are spent eliminating as many Biosyns as possible, but lately he's been noticing something strange among the creature's ranks; not only are they beginning to communicate, but they're starting to travel in groups and their vision seems to be returning as well. The Corporations views Max's existence as a threat, and no they've dispatched a squad of genetically engineered soldiers known as Trackers to dispatch with him. But as the chief tracker watches Max battle a raging horde of Biosynths, he begins to reevaluate his original mission. Perhaps if Max and the Tracker can travel far enough south they will be able to find a place of refuge. According to travelers Zac and Rachel, there's s powerful resistance movement down south. Now, as this unlikely group struggles to find a way out of the wasteland, they stumble right into the middle of a violent war between the raging Biosyns and the Corporation's increasingly strained army."
Sounds cool, right? Well too bad nothing of the above is actually seen in film itself. Except for the woods. There are plenty of those. Infact, the ENTIRE FILM was probably filmed in the same patch of woods, and with two or three scenes taking place in a nearby field (flanked by even more woods).
There are no "hordes" of Biosyns, and these guys look fucking ridiculous by the way. A couple of years ago me and my friends made a zombiefilm for the kicks. We had a budget of maybe 100 bucks. I shit you not, our zombies looked better than these guys.
There's no "army" in the film. At most we see 5 soldiers running around and looking. Infact, five might be too many. I'll revise that to three. There are some tanks at the end, but it's kind of obvious they just filmed that during some training operation of the army.
Oh and every two minutes the main character, who lives in the woods for no apparent reason whatsoever, will sit down and clench his fists together while having a lengthy monologue in his head, álá Terence Malick-style. Except that whoever directed this film ain't Terence Malick.
The main character also happens to be kick ass at fighting. He's like Neo. No kidding, he's that good (but the action scenes are lame and poorly shot and edited). He takes down soldiers and zombies with ease. But never, ever do we get an explanation for this.
Throughout the film there are numerous scenes and obviously intended sub-plots that never, ever get any pay off whatsover. Some scenes even contradict themselves, if such a thing is even possible! In one (very lengthy) sequence the main character stalks four zombies and observes them from afar. He's stalking around the woods (where else?) and the zombies are out in the field (aka: The films other location).
Our hero then seems to decide that it's time to kick these zombies asses. (We have to figure this out by the way he acts, because there's infact no dialoge whatsoever for the first 20 minutes of this film. It's just the main character walking around the woods spying on zombies and fighting some of them in increasingly repetetive scenes.) He walks out into the field with his spear in hand, looking as if he's gonna lure these zombies into some kind of trap. He flexes his muscles and taunts them visually to "come get some". And they do. The zombies start running towards him (Okay, running might be the wrong word... These zombies are played by the rejected monkey extras from Tim Burtons Planet of the Apes) and everything seems to go according to plan - but what then?
The main character picks up his spear, and high-tails it into the woods. The zombies follow. "Aha, he's got an ace up his sleeve!" the audience thinks. Nope, he just gets the heck out of there and the scene ends. Yeah. This movie is that stupid.
I'm hesitant to even calling it a movie.
It's incoherent. Amateurish. Pretentious. Ugly...
Has anyone seen it? Did anyone else fall for the rather cool text on the DVD?
The plot, axed from some site:
"In an apocalyptic future where the human race is poised on the brink of extinction and science has created the ultimate abomination of nature, a lone hunter gatherer realizes the essence of his being while fighting to survive. The year is 2015: the world's petroleum reserves have been depleted due to the oil wars, and the planet has fallen into a hopeless cycle of death and destruction. In an effort to remove the less desirable components of the human population, a powerful organization known only as The Corporation set into motion a heinous depopulation program. But The Corporation didn't expect their scientists to revolt, and in a desperate attempt to save the human race the disgruntled intellects created a drug that reverts normal humans into primitive, instinct-driven beasts known as Biosyns. Biosyns are virtually blind, relying almost entirely on scent and sound to stalk their prey. Max is a young man who lives by himself in the wilderness. Most of his days are spent eliminating as many Biosyns as possible, but lately he's been noticing something strange among the creature's ranks; not only are they beginning to communicate, but they're starting to travel in groups and their vision seems to be returning as well. The Corporations views Max's existence as a threat, and no they've dispatched a squad of genetically engineered soldiers known as Trackers to dispatch with him. But as the chief tracker watches Max battle a raging horde of Biosynths, he begins to reevaluate his original mission. Perhaps if Max and the Tracker can travel far enough south they will be able to find a place of refuge. According to travelers Zac and Rachel, there's s powerful resistance movement down south. Now, as this unlikely group struggles to find a way out of the wasteland, they stumble right into the middle of a violent war between the raging Biosyns and the Corporation's increasingly strained army."
Sounds cool, right? Well too bad nothing of the above is actually seen in film itself. Except for the woods. There are plenty of those. Infact, the ENTIRE FILM was probably filmed in the same patch of woods, and with two or three scenes taking place in a nearby field (flanked by even more woods).
There are no "hordes" of Biosyns, and these guys look fucking ridiculous by the way. A couple of years ago me and my friends made a zombiefilm for the kicks. We had a budget of maybe 100 bucks. I shit you not, our zombies looked better than these guys.
There's no "army" in the film. At most we see 5 soldiers running around and looking. Infact, five might be too many. I'll revise that to three. There are some tanks at the end, but it's kind of obvious they just filmed that during some training operation of the army.
Oh and every two minutes the main character, who lives in the woods for no apparent reason whatsoever, will sit down and clench his fists together while having a lengthy monologue in his head, álá Terence Malick-style. Except that whoever directed this film ain't Terence Malick.
The main character also happens to be kick ass at fighting. He's like Neo. No kidding, he's that good (but the action scenes are lame and poorly shot and edited). He takes down soldiers and zombies with ease. But never, ever do we get an explanation for this.
Throughout the film there are numerous scenes and obviously intended sub-plots that never, ever get any pay off whatsover. Some scenes even contradict themselves, if such a thing is even possible! In one (very lengthy) sequence the main character stalks four zombies and observes them from afar. He's stalking around the woods (where else?) and the zombies are out in the field (aka: The films other location).
Our hero then seems to decide that it's time to kick these zombies asses. (We have to figure this out by the way he acts, because there's infact no dialoge whatsoever for the first 20 minutes of this film. It's just the main character walking around the woods spying on zombies and fighting some of them in increasingly repetetive scenes.) He walks out into the field with his spear in hand, looking as if he's gonna lure these zombies into some kind of trap. He flexes his muscles and taunts them visually to "come get some". And they do. The zombies start running towards him (Okay, running might be the wrong word... These zombies are played by the rejected monkey extras from Tim Burtons Planet of the Apes) and everything seems to go according to plan - but what then?
The main character picks up his spear, and high-tails it into the woods. The zombies follow. "Aha, he's got an ace up his sleeve!" the audience thinks. Nope, he just gets the heck out of there and the scene ends. Yeah. This movie is that stupid.