Battle of the Damned: Dead on arrival

March 15, 2014 07:31 pm | Updated May 19, 2016 08:58 am IST - chennai:

Battle of the Damned seems never ending.

Battle of the Damned seems never ending.

Why didn’t Max just climb the lamppost? What country is this supposed to be? Why does everyone’s voice sound so flat? Why is everyone acting so badly? Aren’t zombies supposed to be shot in the head? How come they move so quickly? Why is a character in a nightdress throughout the film? These were some of the questions scurrying around my brain through this dreary film.

If you, like me thought Dolph Lundgren + zombies + robots = full on time pass, you would have wept bitter tears of disappointment. South Asia is the testing ground for all sorts of horrid things. And a viral outbreak blights the land turning all humans to ravenous zombies. The town is encircled by the military and there is no way in or out. Lundgren, who beat up Stallone in Rocky , plays Max, a mercenary, who is hired by a wicked industrialist to get his daughter, Jude, out of the infested zone. Max goes in, finds Jude who is hanging out with other survivors that include the sort of leader Duke, and a couple of others including boyfriend Reese. Max wants to take Jude home but she is not willing to leave without the others. Then Max finds robots that have walked all the way from Tokyo and whatever, whatever.

Battle of the Damned seems never ending for its 89 minutes and the robots look suspiciously like the robots in director Christopher Hatton’s earlier film, Robotropolis. The effects are blah, the zombies mindless, the action predictable and the acting truly horrendous. And what is with bleeping out swearwords? Last week in 300: Rise of an Empire , the ancient Greeks were swearing like sailors and here it is all coy and bleeped out. Battle of the Damned was shot in Malaysia, but the film doesn’t positively identify any particular city or country. Why Anna is in a nightdress kind of thing through the film is a mystery. The zombies are moving quickly because they want to distance themselves from this truly awful film. For a tough mercenary, Max is beyond stupid if he didn’t think of climbing the lamppost and getting away. The damned are not the zombies or survivors. It is us the viewers who are banished to movie hell to endure this slow torture.

Genre: Action

Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Melanie Zanetti, Matt Doran, David Field, Jen Sung

Director: Christopher Hatton

Storyline: A mercenary has to rescue a woman from zombie-infested zone

Bottomline: Insipid and underwhelming

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