Tag Archives: extinction

Breach (2020)

Yes, I am including Breach (2020, also titled Anti-Life) in my zombie film reviews.  WHY?  Because, by today’s zombie film standards, this fits the model … well, not any worse than Billy Elliot.

Around the year 2242 A.D., Earth is facing an extinction level event.  300,000 survivors are selected to board a spaceship called the Ark (meanwhile 19 billion people are left behind for the big bye-bye).  This ship will take them to a planet to be newly colonized, which will be called New Earth.  Extinction level event, Ark, New Earth — yeah, I know, real inventive.  Shortly into the multi-month trip, a saboteur releases something on board to kill off the crew and 300K passengers in hypersleep.  This wormy slug thing kills people, infects them, and turns the dead in to reanimated (<– SEE, zombie film!) killer monsters.

I’ll stop there because I hate spoilers.

I picked up on Breach from folks talking about it online.  Folks seemed to either love it or hate it.  It’s sci-fi, Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane are the only recognizable stars — ehh — I had to watch it!  So far as I could tell this was a moderately budgeted film (that flopped in the theaters, but it was released just as COVID-19 restrictions were being loosened) that takes you by surprise.  It might not have been spectacular, but I thought it was pretty good.  As zombie films go, understanding that it might be a zombie film … I’d give it a Yellow Puss rating.

This is what a dentist sees following Hallowe’en weekend…

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Kill Command (2016)

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. JacksonRobert 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

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