Battle of the Damned

Battle of the Damned has a great idea going for it. A somewhat unique premise in the execution but its all hampered down by a small budget. Don't get me wrong their is some fun to be had with this movie plus it doesn't try to be anything that its not. Dolph Lundgren is a soldier for hire who gets employed by an individual who wants him to go into a quarantined city of infected people and rescue his daughter. Sure you can call them infected or zombies but essentially they are like the infected in 28 Days Later as in they are fast moving and are more prone to bite and tear than eat. So Lundgren's crew doesn't last long and its up to him and only him to find the target and get her out. Along the way he finds some survivors that are led by one who is addicted to his position and they end up clashing. Also while trapped in the city Dolph and his fellow survivors come across Robots that happen to have wondered into the city fresh off of malfunctioning and killing people from another movie called Robotropolis. So how to get out of the city alive? Reprogram the robots and let them pave a way. I'll admit its a good idea but the acting is uneven, Dolph is showing his age and the budget isn't high enough to properly execute this idea. With that said its entertaining and has a good idea going for it. Sure its not for everybody but its fairly good in the end for what they had to work with.

A contagious virus escapes from a research facility turning people into flesh eating killers. The city is quarantined and a soldier and his team are hired to rescue his daughter.

Christopher Hatton writes and directs this low budget science fiction romp that fuses two sub-genre subjects, the modern zombie-infected and Robots. Coincidently it shares the same basic concept as Zombie Massacre (2013) and elements from a lesser known zombie film Severed: Forest of the Dead (2005).

Shaky camera shots aside it's a b-film that has atmosphere thanks to the unusual Malaysian location and interesting architecture. The generic costume design fittingly works, the music by Joe Ng and Ting Si Hao although borrowing from many sci-fi films is excellent. The violence is aplenty, with the gun and abundance of knife play being effective enough.

There's no small Dolph Lundgren cameo it's very much is his film focusing on his Max Gatling character throughout. Both actresses Oda Maria as Anna and Melanie Zanetti as Jude are notable with the rest of the cast being adequate given Hatton's limited script. The zombies sadly are not the slow shambling kind and the robot CGI effects are a mixed bag. Nevertheless, the relationship between both the main robot (voiced by Tim Cooper) and Max is quiet interesting and humorous. Beneath the low end production there is quite a good story even if it swaps development, depth and pacing for action.

Don't expect too much, Hatton has a lot on his hands juggling all the high concept elements coherently and keeps it linear but what is on offer is the infected, robots and soldier high-jinks and basically that's what it delivers.

I was entertained. First off, it contains Dolph Lundgren, you know what kind of movie it is. He doesn't disappoint, while no Arnie, Dolph handles his one-liners while killing zombies and surviving while all around him die.

Although the zombie attacks are less and lees in the middle of the film, they come back with a running vengeance that overwhelms most of the survivors.

The plot is thin and basic, but the added adventures when the robots come into the picture change the course of their actions quickly.

Good for a popcorn night in.

After a zombie outbreak in Asia, the mercenary Major Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) is hired by a wealthy industrialist that was the responsible for the pandemic to rescue his daughter Jude (Melanie Zanetti) with his team from a city. Max loses his group that is killed by the zombies and stays alone to accomplish his assignment. He finds Jude and learns that there are other survivors; Duke (David Field), Reese (Matt Doran), Elvis (Jen Sung), Lynn (Lydia Look) and Anna (Oda Maria). She refuses to flee alone without the others and Duke and Elvis handcuff Max on a power pole to die. However, when Reese discovers that Jude is pregnant and the city will be firebombed, he rescues Max to save Jude. Then they find a group of robots killing zombies and Max reprograms them to help the survivors to escape. Will the group succeed to escape?

"Battle of the Damned" is a laughable movie with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role. The idea of zombies and robots is original but the execution is very poor: terrible screenplay and dialogs are terrible; and the camera work in the mayhem of zombies is awful. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Zumbis e Robôs" ("Zombies and Robots")

This movie does what I have always wished zombie movies would do. Make the men fighting the zombies competent but not superhuman. The "good guys" shoot with accuracy and don't waste ammo. They also don't just stand still and let the zombies eat them - they fight like their lives depend on it! When they do die the soldiers/mercs die because even though they fought well they were simply over run by superior numbers not because of total complete incompetence which is the standard for 99% of zombie flicks.

Most movies like this have some sort of special forces or organized shock troops that go into battle against the zombies and then just slowly take random unaimed volleys into the zombie crowds with little or no effect and then die pointlessly- their entire lives full of training and discipline completely forgotten and unused- VERY unrealistic. This movie doesn't do that- it is the complete 180 degree opposite and makes you like the characters and want them to live! Fun movie for action and sci-fi fans.