alexivalle

I'll open by saying that I've never seen the Patrick Swayze one, but if you're worried about this film ruining the original, there's already a direct to DVD sequel in the 2000s you should hate more.

Now to this movie...I'm a big UFC fan, but I'm not a Conor fan, and I also like good action movies and cheesy action movies. This is the latter. I liked it. Overall, I thought it was slightly better than a "one time watch" movie. It's in the dumb fun category, basically.

I liked Gylanhaal in the interpreter, and I thought he was was decent here. Furthermore, some of the fight choreography was good. The setting and story were ok, and even though it's over 2 hours, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't drag too much. Conor (who is basically playing an exaggerated version of himself) was entertaining, and I thought the UFC angle was integrated well into the plot. This film also has a lot of humor and I found that a decent amount of it landed. One henchman (I'll try to keep this spoiler free) had me laughing often.

Now to the negatives: some of the acting is bad, like really bad. The sheriff guy in particular, although he isn't the only one. Then there's the VFX. Oh my gosh, they are bad. This movie looks like it was made in iMovie at points. They also did some CGI body double thing to make the punches land during the fight scenes and at best, they are unnoticeable, and at worst, look awful. There's another scene where a character is hit with a car (all done in CGI) and it looks like Sharknado.

For a remake of a cheesy "so bad it's good" movie from the 80s that also feels like an athlete's vanity project, you could do much worse. I was looking forward to watching this one hoping it would be fun. Obviously, I wasn't expecting Goodfellas. And when the movie was over, I felt mostly satisfied. I would probably watch it again, but likely years later and not right now.

If this seems like a movie you'd be interested in, and you have Prime, check it out out of curiosity and grab some beers before you do. I already have Prime so the fact it was essentially free for me gives it some points in its favor.

I don't regret watching it. There's enough here to be fun for a couple hours.

6/10.

Bunker is horror/thriller film that clearly has a small budget. My girlfriend, one of my best friends and I all saw Bunker in a theater as part of the limited release.

We all generally liked it (we all gave it a 6/10), but agreed it could have been a lot better. We are all horror fans, and my friend and I both have degrees in World War I history.

There is a lot of good in this movie, including the acting of the lieutenant, the creature effects, the setting, and the costumes. I was really curious how that would work out, especially since there is a giant Hollywood trend to have WW1 set films (1917 and All Quiet on the Western Front come to mind, both movies I enjoyed). Needless to say, it is pretty immersive in the time period (except for a few obvious uses of green screen).

However, one aspect that really drags this film down is how inconsistent it is. For example, the acting of the main character varies from good and committed to distracting and over the top, the special effects are good (sometimes) and other times involve terrible CGI or obvious use of miniatures. The tension building is sometimes fantastic, and sometimes leads to absolutely nothing or repeats what we as an audience already know.

But the biggest problem with this film is the inconsistency of the pacing. If you've seen the trailer, there is clearly a lot of build up to the plot of this movie (they go in the Bunker and find something). I'm not against slowly paced films (I quite enjoyed some of these types of horror films, namely the Witch), but there is a giant middle portion of this movie that drags. This film is just under 2 hours, but feels easily like a 2 hour and 15 minute film.

I don't think it was worth watching in theaters, but if this film came on Shudder or Netflix, I'd give it a watch.

I agree a lot with FilmGuy's review. In fact, his review is what convinced me to give this film a chance. Obviously you can tell that this film is low budget and because of that, there are going to be confines and limits to the filmmaking. There are some editing errors, sure, but I didn't think any of it was too distracting.

I wouldn't exactly call this a comedy, nor a horror-comedy. There are some funny comedic moments, but it isn't structured like a comedy. It's kind of a three part mix: drama, horror-comedy-esque, and romance. Because of the mix, the tone is kind of inconsistent, which is probably the biggest problem. I would classify it more as a drama-dy romance with horror elements.

However, there are some really interesting ideas here about the afterlife, life itself, and death. It can take a bit to get there, but when it does, the film has interesting and unique ideas that elevate it beyond the usual "Ghost" movies. The two leads are fine and even have some good moments, but the film hits hardest in its emotional moments. These are easily the strongest portions of the film.

It's not the Conjuring, it's not before sunrise, but it's also not the Room or Paranormal Activity. If you're curious, I'd give it a watch. An interesting movie with some interesting lore 7/10