Fubar

Killer weekend might not win any awards and something I suspected would happen in this film didnt, but I enjoyed this throughout. Miles is going on a stag do with his mates, including his soon to be father in law, played by the great mark heap. But really they are going paint balling which is set as if a zombie apocalypse has happened. It starts normally and there are some pretty funny parts but all things go to hell in a hand basket after miles makes a mistake and now the soliders dressed as fake zombies might really be a threat. I thought it was paced well. Good action and a decent enough story to make it enjoyable.

"Fubar" (aka "Killer Weekend") was a movie that came into existence without my knowledge, and I happened to stumble upon it by random luck in 2019. And now that I've seen the movie, I can honestly say that the movie will equally silently and unnoticeably return into obscurity.

This movie was bland. Writers Ben Kent and Joel Wilenius attempted to come up with something that would mix horror and comedy, I suppose. But the finished result was one that was mediocre. I can't claim that I was particularly amused with what transpired on the screen and I definitely wasn't laughing. Nor was it enough in the horror lane to actually be interesting enough to watch.

However, I managed to endure "Fubar" to the end, hoping that the movie would pick up along the way and become better. But it just never did, so no thumbs up for director Ben Kent here.

The characters in the movie were bland and you didn't really care much about what happened to them, and that was a terrible blow to the movie, because there definitely was some potential to it.

The storyline of the movie wasn't particularly innovative or overwhelmingly interesting to me, so it only made for a mediocre watching. I sat through it to the end, but I will never watch the movie a second time.

The writers seem to be fans of "Very Bad Things," which is a very bad movie. This one is somewhat similarly mean-spirited, but in a classy British way. It was good on the character side and had some decent plot twists. Some of the good jokes are subtle, requiring close attention. Others, though, are not subtle at all -- and more delicate viewers might regret having seen. It seems to have many titles. The one I saw was "Game Over."

If you're an adult whose seen a few movies, you've almost certainly seen a better version of this film. If you can accept that, you might get a few laughs and some mild entertainment out of this. The characterisation is poor - too many indistinct characters and alot of the ones you do remember are annoying and derivative. The script has quite a few "do people really talk like that?" isms but some effective plot twists, snappy editing, well framed shots and even the odd funny joke mean it flies by quicker than it really ought to. Plus it's against the laws of God and man to totally hate something that features Mark Heap this heavily.

Plot

When a hopeless stag party goes on a mock zombie survival weekend, an unfortunate turn of events leave them fighting for their lives.

Cast

Outside of British comedy mainstay Mark Heap I didn't know anybody.

Verdict

Me and British comedies don't have the best history, okay fine let me rephrase me and British movies don't have the best history (And I'm British) we focus too much on council estates, football hooliganism, chavvy behaviour and faux "Gangsters" none of which interest me. There have absolutely been exceptions over the years, masterpieces even! But I'm still hesitant and was going into Fubar (Especially as it goes by two names, I hate that).

Early on I realized they were your bog standard over the hard to like loud characters which made me even further concerned but once the film got going I found myself able to put that to one side and just enjoy the film, and enjoy it I did.

Sure Fubar is no comedy masterpiece but it's funny, it's well made, it has an interesting concept and a few memorable moments. For what it is it's a lot of fun and well worth 90 minutes of your time.

Rants

I'll tell you a bugbear I have with IMDB, 1 star reviews! Each to his/her own but to me 1 star review suggests a film has absolutely no redeeming features, not one thing going for it and is an offense to the eyes, ears and mind. Few films should ever be labelled as such and though taste is most certainly subjective I don't see how anyone could say this has no redeeming features yet there are a LOT of 1 star reviews for Fubar. Hate campaign? No shortage of them on here? Now don't get me wrong as you'll see from my profile I have at time of writing 927 1 star ratings, however that makes up 6% of almost 16k! I think a 1 or a 10 in many instances just can't be taken seriously and people have an agenda behind that decision. This is far from a 1 star movie.

The Good

Mark Heap is great Some really quite funny moments Surprisingly well made

The Bad

Characters can be a smidge annoying I'd have rather they wrote a certain fight scene differently.