Tag Archives: combat

Movie, Review, Sci-Fi

Kill Command (2016)

Leave a comment

Giant Killer Robots ... minus the giantOkay, so if you’ve looked at at my blog at all — and if you haven’t I wouldn’t be surprised — you know that when it comes to movies, most of my thing is reviewing zombie films …. and occasionally movies that I think are important for musicians/artists to view.  As much as I get a kick out of Z-films, I am as much or more of a fan of Sci-Fi.   Kill Command

I got my hands on Kill Command by accident — call it a happy accident.  When I go to my local library looking for films, I have a habit — I check the Sci-Fi section, followed by Action, then usually Westerns, and then whatever else.  The organization at the library strikes me as weird sometimes when it comes to films — this was listed-as and filed-in Action … which it is an Action film but in my mind it’s Sci-Fi before that.  Whatever … I watch every zombie film I can get my hands on, so of course — I took Kill Command home!

Couch Potato watching Kill Command

You know when you’ve watched all the recent movies … you feel like there’s nothing to see and you have nothing to do … and you pick up some film to relax with even though it doesn’t look very promising … and as you get into the flick you expected to be a potboiler and suddenly you’re faced with the reality that the film is pretty durn FANTASTIC?   And then the more you watch you feel like you’ve discovered some secret film that your friends don’t know about because usually all you see is HolloWood or American films and pretty much miss everything that comes out of Europe.  Yeah, if you’re a Sci-Fi fan, that’s Kill Command!

Relax, everything is under control in Kill Command
A glimpse into the near-future — placing your order at a fast-food joint…
KILL COMMAND, also known as IDENTIFY …

… takes you into a technologically advanced near future.  The Harbinger Corporation supplies the military with warfare A.I. systems.  A programming anomaly has been discovered  at an undisclosed island — the Harbinger I Training Facility.  A scientific specialist has been sent in with a team of six American marines — all of whom have been assigned to a two-day training mission.

Sci-fi Marines and airships -- what more could you want?

As the night and following day unfolds, they discovery that the team has been inserted into a coup de grace where the intelligent and flawed combat machines have taken over the facility … and are beginning to attack the team … and learn their human combat tactics.

Robots with killer weapons coming out of smoke .... no problem
Trust me, these guys are worse than unannounced visits by door-to-door religious fanatics.

The film was released on 13 May 2016 in the United Kingdom and received a limited screening in the US on 25 November 2016, ultimately receiving mixed to positive reviews.  Here’s the thing, my fellow ‘Murcians — there are a lot of films outside of the U.S. that we are unaware of.  In the world of film, the American/HolloWood arena is the big player — and not everything outside of that arena makes it in* …. and a lot of it is good material, too!  Maybe “Kill Command” wouldn’t have been a huge film on the U.S. scene, but with the right marketing I think it would have gone over well.  Instead, you heard it here … for free …. because I love Sci-Fi.
Formula 51 AKA The 51st State(*Did you see the 2001 film “The 51st State” staring Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle and Meat Loaf?  I was in Glasgow when it was out.  We drove by a theater that displayed a movie poster for a flick I had never heard of.  I was told two things — there are a lot of films made in Europe and I will never see this one in America.  For that reason alone I thought to go see it while I was there, but I ended up seeing The Lord Of The Rings instead sitting in the worst movie theater seat in all of Scotland.  Fortunately, the film did make it to America as “Formula 51“.)

pew pew pew - cool tech in Kill Command
No red shirts on this guy!
You had me at “GIANT KILLER ROBOTS”

Kill Command has everything Action Sci-Fi fans LOVE!  A futuristic setting, advanced technology, soldiers with cybernetic enhancements, things blowing up, lotsa guns going PEW PEW PEW, and GIANT KILLER ROBOTS.  There’s even a cyborg!  Oh, and a super-cool weird-techy vehicle like this…

Sci-fi marine airship of AWESOMENESS in Kill Command

LINKS

Movie, Review, Zombies

Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013)

2 Comments

Right up front, I want to be abundantly clear about Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz, I rate this film Red Blood.

As far as I’m concerned Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz does not deserve the honor of a review or a comment on my webpage.  HOWEVER, I bought a copy, I’ve seen it, and I’m fairly thorough …. and I’ll share my opinion for other film fans of a genre so they know to avoid this terrible addition to an otherwise great series.

Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz = AVOID

So there are a few things that happen in HolloWood that really stink up art, films, creative ideas …. and I mean stink up like the scrapings from the dog park at the end of a July weekend.  One of them is excessive creative liberties …. “I paid for the license on this story, and now regardless of whatever that story is I can do what I want — and I do!”  Another one is the thought that world federation wrestlers, extreme fighters, or ultimate weight lifters can act …. instead of putting them out to pasture once they’ve body-slammed their brains out or whatever, someone tries putting them into film.  Sometimes that works — a great example would be Dwayne Johnson — not only did we get lucky there, we got a real gift.  Usually what’s done is they put them in high-action/low-story roles, and because there’s a bunch of action it must be a good film.  WRONG!

Sneaky!

This film takes the setting of Outpost and tries to give the back-story — the origins of the machine and the experiments — and strings along a battle-royal with some Russian Special Forces soldiers who come off more as resistance fighters and ultimately does nothing to establish the subtitle of the ‘Rise of the Spetsnaz‘.

Please, lob a grenade at this turd.

The opportunity for a quality, meaningful, story-establishing prequel to Outpost (2008) was entirely missed with Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz.  As my understanding goes, there was more money wasted on Rise of the Spetsnaz than there was spent on making Outpost: Black Sun (2012).  Black Sun is in my mind a superior film to Rise of the Spetsnaz.  Black Sun derivatives from the character of the original 2008 film but stays enough within the universe.  Rise of the Spetnaz just took the setting and did whatever it wanted for the sake of making some meatheads an acting career.  In Black Sun the world is being threatened by the machine and the un-dead phase-shifting Nazi super soldiers, and had the money that was thrown away in making Rise of the Spetsnazbeen put to Black Sun it could have delivered this world-threat development better.

FULL … METAL … JACKET — oh, whoops, wrong film!

I now own the 2008, 2012, and 2013 Outpost films.  I’m glad to have seen all three to know all the ground covered with the original idea, but had I known what was done with Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz I wouldn’t have paid ten cents for a copy.

Links

Movie, Review, Zombies

Outpost: Black Sun (2012)

3 Comments

The short writing about Outpost: Black Sun is this …. at one time I had a longer writing …. it’s relative to that time that I thought I didn’t need to back-up my hard drive.  Lesson learned; now I back-up like a mad-man.

More or less to say, Outpost: Black Sun is the Yellow Puss-rated additional film that should have been made to compliment the original 2008 Outpost.

The story for Outpost: Black Sun works; you get to revisit the dangerous location found in the original film and yet go further in.  The phase-shifting zombie-Nazis are now more of a threat — in this case, to the whole world!  There are some creative liberties I could have done without.  The sad thing is that this film has less money behind it (or at least to my understanding) than Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz and did far more to carry the story line.  Had only the wasted Rise of the Spetsnaz money been put to this film, then Black Sun could have been even better.  If you liked the original Outpost, see Outpost: Black Sun —  skip seeing Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz.

Links

Catherine Steadman as Nazi-hunter Lena … WOWIE!
Movie, Review, Zombies

Outpost (2008)

3 Comments

Outpost was my first exposure to the concept of zombie-Nazis. I found a copy on DVD at a liquidator store for $3.  Figuring that it was going to be a roach, I was just too amused at the combination of zombies and Nazis, and had to get it.  What I found out that it was a fantastic film!

Outpost is rated Green Ooze and is one of BagpiperDon’s Favourite Zombie Movies.

Oh, and if you get really opinionated about Outpost, you can debate as to whether or not the Nazis are zombies, phase-shifting zombies, or humans transformed into ghosts. Regardless, in this humble Highland bagpiper’s z-film opinion, this flick kicks ass!

Links