Dead Rising: Watchtower - O Filme

Hubby says 'worth a watch but should have left it at the game'! I say 'worth a watch...the rating of 5.2 put me off...but watched anyway. Zombie acting wasn't as good as I'd have liked ( but when you have watched walking dead, it's pretty hard to follow) there are a few times when you are literally screaming at the screen because the main character is standing around when a 'normal' person would have either s##t there pants/died/or got the f##k outta there. Overall half decent film.

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 ...

At an event where people who have been bitten by zombies are waiting for their anti-zombie injections (which they must periodically take) a reporter, out to make a name for himself in the news business, has an argument with his camera woman over his exploitive and sensationalistic idea of news reporting, and they go their separate ways. She to leave the scene, and he to sneak into a tent to take secret pictures where medical personnel are administering the anti-zombie injection for those who have been bitten. He's present when --for some reason-- the drug does not work and all hell breaks loose. On the run for dear life, he teams up with a hot brunette of the model variety with whom he had an embarrassing encounter earlier to the amusement of his camera woman.

Though this movie is not an "outright" comedy (one with a lot of blunt silliness and slapstick, for example), it is no doubt a horror comedy; played a bit more seriously and deadpan. It has some amateurish flaws of execution, but is more forgivable since it is a comedy and you can't take it seriously anyway. As well, you want to root for people who aren't part of the Hollywood establishment who make a decent effort to entertain you. The main flaw, I thought, was those narrow escapes or close calls where the zombies or bad guys clearly had ample opportunity to bite or do bad things but the would-be victim got away. Some of them doing so after the camera cuts away to another scene during the attack or threat and returns to see them still unharmed.

Nonetheless, this movie is still entertaining and therefore worth your time. Watch out for the live news broadcast with the anchorwoman and her celebrity guest zombie expert. It is reminiscent to me of something you would see on Saturday Night Live, if you ever watched that show. It is well done and funny without seeming to try to be. At the end, this movie seems to promise a sequel. I look forward to it. Love, Boloxxxi.

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.