Dead Rising - Watchtower

So many attempts have been made by Hollywood to create a movie from a video game (Doom, Super Mario Brothers, Max Payne) and vice versa (Alien, Indiana Jones, The Evil Dead, Jaws) that have been so so bad, that my expectations were pretty low going into this newest fare.

Dead Rising: Watchtower is the live action adaptation of the hugely popular video game series Dead Rising, by game giant Capcom. And I have to say, right from the get go– I was pleasantly surprised! Not only did it not suck, it was actually very entertaining.

Don't get me wrong. There was plenty in this two hour film that will ensure it will never be hoisted up into the realm of Romero or even The Walking Dead any time soon. But as average zombie fare goes, it was actually above average.

The story follows online reporter Chase Carter (Jesse Metcalfe) and his camerawoman Jordon (Keegan Connor Tracy) as they cover the stories of the people inside of the walled-in quarantined area in Oregon, as the government (FEZA – Federal Emergency Zombie Authority) attempts to contain a viral outbreak that turns people into ravenous zombies. An anti-viral drug called Zombrex, that keeps the virus at bay, is being administered to those infected. When it becomes clear that the drug is no longer effective, Chase, Jordon, grieving mother Maggie (Virginia Madsen), and survivor, Crystal (Meghan Ory) battle their way to a pawn shop, and temporary safety. But Crystal has a dark secret, and the army has a hidden agenda.

This the perfect set up that turns the movie back into the video game. All manner of weapons can be fashioned from things in the pawn shop of course… and well, they are. A garbage can lid gets protruding blades, anything with a long handle gets a pike, a sledge hammer head, or a tree-limb rotary saw attached to each end, making for plenty of weapon-point-of-view camera shots later on. Case in point: a continuous tracking shot with no cut-aways that follows Chase through a horde, into a bus, out of the bus, onto a car, on top of the bus, all the while battling the undead with his tree-limb rotary saw and baseball bat. Marvelous! While the main characters do a decent job as beleaguered protagonists, some of the best performances are by the supporting cast. These include Aleks Paunovic as a Mad Max-style biker gang leader who wants to rule the world with his minions, and the always entertaining Rob Riggle as hotshot Frank West, who has already survived one outbreak, being interviewed (and being a jack-ass) on the UBN news broadcasts, interspersed throughout the movie.

I would like to have seen more visceral carnage (there's plenty of zombie-killing, but mostly CGI blood, and not nearly enough amputations). Through the use of the many improvised weapons, there are quite a number of inventive kills, but one stands out for me. It's a shot of a wandering zombie-dad chowing down on the remains of his child who is strapped to his chest in a baby front-pack– kind of like a feed bag.

The lack of true gore was obviously a budgetary constraint, but this was definitely not a low-budget affair. A few more practical "Walking Dead-style" effects would have upped the ante for me. That might be my only real complaint.

I read a couple of pretty scathing reviews, but I think they just didn't get it. Dead Rising, Watchtower stays pretty true to the video game, which was its obvious intent. There are plenty of shout-outs to the game itself, like Chase donning a servbot helmet t-shirt, and one zombie getting "traffic-coned." There is probably too much plot for its own good (I can't believe I'm saying that) making it feel like a hodgepodge of ideas that could have played out over the run of a television series (which is in the works, by the way).

Is it worth watching? For fans of the game, absolutely! It's entertaining and free on Crackle right now. Will you find it entertaining? It depends on the mindset you go into it with.

It would've been difficult to place a whole movie inside a mall and make it interesting enough ... oh wait: Dawn of the Dead already did that and succeeded! Which might have been one if not the main inspiration for the video game "Dead Rising" (there have been a couple of "sequels" to the original game up to this moment).

Like the games you can assume that there will be more movies. Especially if they are successful. The two main characters here are very good looking, which is "dealt" with very early on. A nice touch even if an obvious one. The action is more than decent and the story moves along nicely. Aspects from the game (building weapons McGuyver style) are also present ...

Movies like this are pouring oil on the "oh-my-god-another-zombie- whatever" fire and also give games based movies a bad rap.

For probably no other reason than pure brand marketing, Dead Rising: Watchtower exists.

It doesn't add anything of significance to overall Dead Rising franchise in terms of story or, well - anything. The thing is, Dead Rising games are dumb, dumb but fun and mostly self-aware of that dumbness and all that didn't translate here very well.

On one hand, casting is kinda OK, acting is mediocre at best, uninteresting at worst. But on the other hand, right from the start we don't quite understand should this be serious or campy fun? It should be campy fun but movie just flirts with that on the surface with easter eggs and few obligatory fan service moments. Mostly it's serious and the story and script are far cry from anything interesting and/or original.

Characters are mostly bland and boring, although Rob Riggle is a good choice for Frank West. Beside him, others are just generic reluctant hero, tough girl and off the shelf villain with a dash of zombies and some government conspiracy stuff. Also, it's funny how most of the characters act totally incompetent for the first half of the movie. Like they came from some la-la-land and not the Dead Rising universe that already had few big zombie outbreaks and people are living with medicated zombies around them.

Now, mediocreness of the story and characterization aside, there is one thing that drove me almost bonkers while watching - photography. Camera shooting style is half way generic-TV-show and half way Michael Bayhem. For some reason there are first person shots from weird angles, like from a weapon's angle or zombie's POV. Which is kind of dumb because Dead Rising is a third person game, not FPS and... it's just looks dumb, okay. That and few other unnecessary camera "tricks" made this movie look like a generic post-numetal video from 2001.

I guess I should also mention zombies, right? Well, there aren't much of those during the movie and when there are, they are mostly generic. There are no zombie herds or such, just a few groups here and there. Sometimes they are fast, sometimes they are slow and clunky, it depends on the script requirements at that particular moment in the story. No rules really. Also, combo weapons and zombie kills are not impressive. But they should be, so there's that also.

As you may noticed, the main word here is "generic" and most of the time Dead Rising: Watchower is just that. Story, characters, acting, script, effects, locations, etc.. they are all in that "passable" realm filed under "W" for "whatever". Camera-work is not though, that could definitely be better.

Overall, I'm giving it a 5 out 10 which roughly translates to "you could watch it but you're not missing anything actually". I would like to say it's a cashgrab but I'm not really sure they'll earn much money with this passable generic TV-like movie anyway. Maybe it'll lead into a new Dead Rising game? At least that would be fun for a change.

This latest zombie outbreak movie has a couple run from a quarantined zone after a government vaccine fails to stop the spread of the undead. Survivors try desperately to find a cure, while typical mayhem surrounds them.

This was seemingly based on a video-game. It contains most of the usual zombie action you will have come to expect and really doesn't have too much to differentiate itself from the pack. Tonally it plays things for laughs some of the time but mostly goes for a relatively straight treatment. I suppose one of the most distinctive elements of this one is the running commentary from a newsroom. From here, a survivor from a previous outbreak who wrote a book about it offers his pearls of wisdom to the nation. On the whole, while this was quite a good idea, I never felt it was as funny as it should be. Aside from this, it's business as usual with hordes of zombies rampaging through an infected city, with a small group of survivors, government troops and criminals making up the numbers. There is a reasonable amount of variety to proceedings to keep things interesting enough and there are even some impressive technical moments like the attack around the bus, where a long unbroken camera shot follows the action up, down and over the action. But the film does start to outstay its welcome after some time, not helped by it clocking in at nearly two hours which seemed way in excess of what was needed. Overall, passable stuff but nothing too great either.

When a government vaccine fails to stop another zombie infection a man teams up with an infected woman to escape the quarantined area before a crazy man wanting to be king of the zombies expands the territory.

Sony's Crackle, all streaming online, on-demand in conjunction with Legendary pictures offer an adaptation of Dead Rising Capcom's best selling video game. What's clear from director Zach Lipovsky's offering is that it's no cheap cash-in. Opening with a cute cartoon explanation of the zombie anti virus Zombrex, we're the introduced to hordes of the dead, a creepy clown and policeman zombie within the first few minutes.

With sweeping city scales and tight close ups there's a sense of scale, urgency and panic especially with the impending military action. Jesse Metcalfe's Chase Carter is reminiscent of a mix of D.J, Cotrona and George Clooney's Seth Gecko nonchalant delivery. It's good to see one of the biggest 80s stars Virginia Madsen on the screen in the role of a troubled mother. With plenty of screen presence Meghan Ory is notable as Crystal O'Rourke and Bate's Motel's Keegan Connor Tracy is weighty in a small role as Joran.

Sadly Dead Rising is broken up by satirical Robocop-like news reports and interviews featuring Rob Riggle and TV-like fade outs don't help the pacing. It has a C.S.I crisp look, while not filmatic it doesn't feel like DTV and has some great special effects. With slicing spinning blades, bats used as weapons and gun-play there's plenty of zombie blood and guts on display. The second half during the night time scenes gets a little darker, no pun intended, with eerie dead girl characters, chainsaws, rough raping nomads, shotguns, nose biting, motorbikes and more explosions.

Even though I've never played Dead Rising its surprising how it captures the feel of at least the posters, clips and game adverts I'd seen and subconsciously locked away with Metcalfe striking poses of Carter in framed angles synonymous with the game series (think Prince of Persia).

Dead Rising a.k.a. Dead Rising: Watchtower is a solid addition to the saturated zombie film market with well executed effects and action stunt set ups. It's main issue by default and through no fault of its it own nor Lipovsky's or writer/producer Tim Carter it's all been done before. The game also apparently had a liable suit brought against it in 2008 for its similarities to Dawn of the Dead '78 and 2004. Nevertheless, if Dead Rising had been released in 2006 the same year of the game release it may have faired a little better as while it is a good production it feels like it's covering old ground, zombies in general are not as fresh as they used to be, say in 1985.

Hopefully it fulfils Dead Rising fans dreams but for the average viewer with nostalgic inducing cult films like Wrymwood and Bloodbath Bombshell injecting new life into the tired genre and big budget outings like The Dawn of the Dead remake and WWZ, Dead Rising feels a little too Resident Evil Apocalypse or TV pilot-like with its expensive C.S.I feel and odd set up for sequel ending. If a TV spin off is to come, Rising's well executed focus on violence would put it above Z Nation and debatably below The Walking Dead.