Aha! Two good movies in a row! It's so hard to tell whether a movie is good or not from the Netflix reviews. The first three reviews are always like 4 or 5 stars, and the next three reviews are all one or two stars. It's so weird. I picked this film because it mentioned that it had the best monsters one reviewer had ever seen. That's good enough for me!
Frankenstein's Army (2013) is about a group of Russian scouts making their way into German territory during World War 2. A couple of the newer recruits have been designated as cameramen, making some sort of propaganda film / documentary or something. The radio operator can't seem to get through to headquarters, but they do pick up a distress call from another group of russian scouts. Heading to the coordinates on the distress call, they come to a village with a church that has been damaged by artillery fire. Outside the church is a pile of burnt nuns, one of whom is still alive. The soldiers take mercy on the crispy nun, and kill her. Entering the church, they find a staircase leading downwards, and a bunch of electrical machinery. Restarting the generator leads to them finding a sort of half-woman, half-machine nun, with a drill bit where her right arm used to be, laying apparently dead on the floor...
This was a decent movie, for a found-footage type of flick. The cameramen aren't your normal, whiny scaredy-cats who drop the camera at the first sign of trouble, and all you get to see is the side of a wall for hours until someone picks up the camera again. These are Russian soldiers, who take showers outside in the middle of winter, and pick up weapons as they find them, because they emptied their previous weapon into the body of the last enemy they fought.
As one of the reviewers put it, there's a lot of cool monsters in this movie. I don't want to give away any details, but the acting was decent, the found-footage style of camera work wasn't hardly annoying at all, and most of the time, was barely noticeable. I don't really recall any nudity in this flick, either, which is mildly disappointing, but how many hot chicks are you going to find in a deserted German village in the middle of winter? Exactly. Not many.
Personally, I think there was a little too much build-up to get to the good parts, with an unnecessary amount of footage spent filming the scouts walking through woods and scouting the countryside. But once you get to the action parts, it's pretty much non-stop after that. The ending was kind of weird, but not entirely unexpected, and not a disappointment at all. Pretty sure I haven't given away anything that would ruin the movie here, so go ahead and watch it on Netflix if you want to. It's definitely something I could watch over again, just for the view of all the cool monsters. Also, it's kind of a war film, so if you like those types of movies, this is nice for you. I happen to like war movies (preferably with monsters), so that was a bonus for me.
So, to sum up, good movie, rewatchable, no nudity, cool monsters. Decent plot, good acting. Drawbacks are found footage style filming, and slow buildup. Watch and enjoy! :-D
I have a little time and some space tonight, so a quick recap of the different series I am watching this season. Gotham and Scorpion are still decently watchable on monday nights. Sleepy Hollow hasn't managed to capture my interest enough to switch the channel away from Scorpion so far this season. Still watching Flash to see where it goes, but not entirely thrilled so far. Agents of SHIELD is still one of my favorites. Gave up on Forever (too lame and mushy), American Horror Story (too many clowns, and I don't just mean the clown), and Gracepoint (too boring). Z Nation was getting interesting until they killed off my favorite character. See, if there's one thing I like in a character, it's the ability to kick some ass. The big bearded sargeant, for instance, I think his name was Garrett? Anyway, he could kick some serious zombie ass, with or without a weapon. And, he's dead now. Which does take some of the fun out of the show. Looking forward to Grimm and Constantine this friday. I am hoping Constantine is as good as advertised, but I'm not holding my breath.
That's all for tonight. Catch you guys tomorrow night with another review! :-)
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