La battaglia dei dannati

Dolph Lungren stars in yet another straight to DVD action film. This time he plays a former military man recruited by a wealthy guy to go somewhere dangerous and extract his daughter. So yeah basically the same plot as a couple of hundred other action flicks.

The twist is the "Dangerous area" is full of zombies, and on top of that military grade robots are also out in force.

With a hostile reception from all sides upon his arrival Lungren must dig deep to find and rescue the girl.

It's dumb, it looks shoddy and despite the zombies vs robots thing which is remotely original the whole thing feels oddly familiar.

For fans of Lungren or hardcore zombie nuts only.

The Good:

Lungren still looks the part

Kind of original

The Bad:

Crappy zombies

SFX more miss than hit

Weak kills

Seven shades of dumb

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")

Zombie movie with robots? Sure? Why not? But it is not necessarily a great combination.

"Battle of the Damned" basically have the most simple story lines of all times. A city in Asia has become afflicted with a virus that turns people into crazed killers. And corporate CEO hires military expert Max (played by Dolph Lundgren) to infiltrate the infected quarantine zone and bring back his daughter.

That was basically the storyline. And you get what you pay for here, a shallow storyline that is driven by the action alone. The story is not overly interesting or deep. It works for what it is intended to do though, and the movie is entertaining enough in itself.

As for the infected, or zombies, well first of all they were hyper-mobile and agile, running around and making odd bestial growling sounds. Two things that doesn't sit well with me, and that was a factor that pulled the movie down in my opinion. There isn't really any gore or mayhem here, as the infected are basically just Asian people covered in dirt, soot and wear torn and shredded clothing.

Action-wise, then "Battle of the Damned" is alright. Not super great, but it is enjoyable, and well worth watching a single time.

With the people hired for the various characters and roles, you know what you are getting for your money's worth, so don't expect Oscar winning performances here.

If you enjoy Dolph Lundgren's movies, then I am sure you will find some enjoyment in "Battle of the Damned". If you are watching the movie out of your love for zombies, as I did, then this movie doesn't really impress.

This is yet another "cash in" on the zombie success movies. Remove success and that is what you have, a zombie movie. A very typical one at that, hire a merc to go into a zone infested with zombies to save the damsel in distress. If it wasn't Dolph Lundgren as the action hero(with a GREAT heroes name "Max Gatling") than this movie would score much lower. The action is OK I guess for a low budget movie, although not very believable. I do appreciate that the writer/director of this chose Dolph with the perfect script in mind, hardly any dialog. That sums up the acting, it is horrible, by all involved. I am pretty sure you can quickly visualize the whole movie, so that sums it up. The effects are pretty standard for the budget, poor. That brings me to a curious point, why are the robots in this the same as the robots from "Robotropolis" ? A quick search solved this dilemma "Battle Of The Damned is written and directed by Christopher Hatton (who previously made Robotropolis), will commence shooting in Malaysia this summer, and will be released at some point in 2013." So recycled robots, and effects...and yes, i am reviewing that movie next (out of order on purpose since they don't really have anything to do with each other) If you like Dolph, then it is fine, mindless fun. If not, don't bother. 3.7/10

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.