Post by Bub on Dec 11, 2004 10:02:54 GMT -5
Copy and pasted from B-D.
Not as good as the first. Almost as good as the second. Leaps and bounds better than the third. These three statements best describe how I feel about Return of the Living Dead 4 : Necropolis. In other words, I thought it was great.
THE GOOD:
It's a zombie movie with a bit of a budget. Even though I'm sure most of the money was spent on filming in Chernobyl, there was a budget. This is a funny movie. It's not meant to be taken seriously at all (think Shaun of the Dead and Dead Heat). Hell, the zombies even fist fight with the good guys. In my book, that is comical genius. Some of the best comedy was Peter Coyote as the mad scientist. I can't gather the words to describe how great he was in the movie. Just think Dr. Werner Klopek from The ‘Burbs minus the accent (Coyote was one of the few actors sans accent in this movie) To add to the comedy, the copy I saw was the video working print and most of the actors had their Eastern European accents along with broken English. Unfortunately, they said that they are going to dub over the bad English with American accents. IMO this will make the movie a little less funny. Prime example:
Euro security guard- Why are you working so much?
American security guard (one of the female leads) – I've gotta save for Christmas.
Euro security guard- Christmas is cool.
The gore... it was pretty good compared to a lot of what I have seen, and there were PLENTY of head shots done the traditional way with blood spraying out of the front and back of the heads. There are also LOTS of the traditional head munching shots as a throwback to the original.
THE BAD:
The cast was not very strong. But they were bad enough that I almost put this under the GOOD section. The lead actor (who is NOT credited on IMDB and there were no credits at the end of the screening) has exactly ONE reaction expression for every occasion, and it looks like he is trying to poop. But the performances can't be blamed on the actors. I think that the writers should have watched the first movies in the series because they made a big mistake. The heroes were KILLING the zombies with bullets (and even by snapping their necks) THE ROTLD ZOMBIES CAN'T BE KILLED BY BULLETS!!!!!
THE UGLY:
The only thing I can really say is while the gore was great; the make-up was not as good as I was wanting it to be. I don't know if it was because I saw a work print or not, but it was not that good. Some of the close ups of the zombies just looked like people with dried oatmeal touched up with tempera paint. And too often they used masks for the zombies when they were close enough that they should have used prosthetics.
OVERALL, I would say that if you liked the original movies as well as Scary Movie, Dead Heat and Shaun of the Dead you should give this a shot. In a few hours I'm going to see Rave to the Grave. The same characters that die in part 4 are in part 5. It will be fun to see how that is explained.
Not as good as the first. Almost as good as the second. Leaps and bounds better than the third. These three statements best describe how I feel about Return of the Living Dead 4 : Necropolis. In other words, I thought it was great.
THE GOOD:
It's a zombie movie with a bit of a budget. Even though I'm sure most of the money was spent on filming in Chernobyl, there was a budget. This is a funny movie. It's not meant to be taken seriously at all (think Shaun of the Dead and Dead Heat). Hell, the zombies even fist fight with the good guys. In my book, that is comical genius. Some of the best comedy was Peter Coyote as the mad scientist. I can't gather the words to describe how great he was in the movie. Just think Dr. Werner Klopek from The ‘Burbs minus the accent (Coyote was one of the few actors sans accent in this movie) To add to the comedy, the copy I saw was the video working print and most of the actors had their Eastern European accents along with broken English. Unfortunately, they said that they are going to dub over the bad English with American accents. IMO this will make the movie a little less funny. Prime example:
Euro security guard- Why are you working so much?
American security guard (one of the female leads) – I've gotta save for Christmas.
Euro security guard- Christmas is cool.
The gore... it was pretty good compared to a lot of what I have seen, and there were PLENTY of head shots done the traditional way with blood spraying out of the front and back of the heads. There are also LOTS of the traditional head munching shots as a throwback to the original.
THE BAD:
The cast was not very strong. But they were bad enough that I almost put this under the GOOD section. The lead actor (who is NOT credited on IMDB and there were no credits at the end of the screening) has exactly ONE reaction expression for every occasion, and it looks like he is trying to poop. But the performances can't be blamed on the actors. I think that the writers should have watched the first movies in the series because they made a big mistake. The heroes were KILLING the zombies with bullets (and even by snapping their necks) THE ROTLD ZOMBIES CAN'T BE KILLED BY BULLETS!!!!!
THE UGLY:
The only thing I can really say is while the gore was great; the make-up was not as good as I was wanting it to be. I don't know if it was because I saw a work print or not, but it was not that good. Some of the close ups of the zombies just looked like people with dried oatmeal touched up with tempera paint. And too often they used masks for the zombies when they were close enough that they should have used prosthetics.
OVERALL, I would say that if you liked the original movies as well as Scary Movie, Dead Heat and Shaun of the Dead you should give this a shot. In a few hours I'm going to see Rave to the Grave. The same characters that die in part 4 are in part 5. It will be fun to see how that is explained.
