Movie Defense Force: Rampage

[SonOfMethuselah]

Not gonna lie, Jim, when you tweeted that it was going to be an Uwe Boll film, I expected - and am actually a little bit disappointed this wasn't - one of his forays into video game movies. I've never actually watched any of his films, as they are decried as universally dreadful, but I would have enjoyed someone sticking up for In the Name of the King or the Bloodrayne movie.

That said, I thought this was a pretty good defense. I've never seen this movie, but you do a good job of sticking up for it: had I strolled into a video store and seen Boll's name on it, I would have ignored it completely. But you make it sound somewhat compelling, which is really all I need to give a movie a chance. I'm thoroughly sick of the whole 'shaky-cam, documentary style' thing that movies seem to be enjoying these days, but this one actually sounds pretty watchable.

Nice defense. P.S, should you happen to see this, I totally watched the Mortal Kombat movie on your word, and found it a thoroughly fun martial arts film. Lambert as Rayden has to be the weirdest casting choice I've ever seen, but I even got a laugh out of his awkwardness. Looking forward to seeing what you defend next.

 

[Strazdas]

I don't live in America but I've traveled there often and at no point have I ever walked through an American city or small town and encountered nothing but people with sub-20 BMIs.

Sub20 BMIs? You are aware that by that number a person would be effectively skin and bones? bellow 60 BMI is considered unhealthy already. i know a lot of acress keeps it at minimum required 60 BMI limit (else they actually arent allwoed t be in the business due to self-harm) but 20 BMIs are just ridiculous.

 

[Ariseishirou]

I don't live in America but I've traveled there often and at no point have I ever walked through an American city or small town and encountered nothing but people with sub-20 BMIs.

Sub20 BMIs? You are aware that by that number a person would be effectively skin and bones? bellow 60 BMI is considered unhealthy already. i know a lot of acress keeps it at minimum required 60 BMI limit (else they actually arent allwoed t be in the business due to self-harm) but 20 BMIs are just ridiculous.

Erm... no. Sub-20 is the lower end of "healthy". Above 40 is "very severely obese". Above 60 would be a land whale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Categories

Google's your friend, mate.

 

[Strazdas]

I don't live in America but I've traveled there often and at no point have I ever walked through an American city or small town and encountered nothing but people with sub-20 BMIs.

Sub20 BMIs? You are aware that by that number a person would be effectively skin and bones? bellow 60 BMI is considered unhealthy already. i know a lot of acress keeps it at minimum required 60 BMI limit (else they actually arent allwoed t be in the business due to self-harm) but 20 BMIs are just ridiculous.

Erm... no. Sub-20 is the lower end of "healthy". Above 40 is "very severely obese". Above 60 would be a land whale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Categories

Google's your friend, mate.

whooops, was thinking of BMI prime (named differently in local language). my mistake, you are correct here

 

[JimB]

I've never seen the movie, and your description of it certainly makes it sound interesting enough to watch, Mr. Sterling, but I'm afraid the film hit a one of my buttons. That scene at the end of your video, where he chats with the cornered woman before murdering her, is one of those things that I just can't abide. The moment a killer starts toying with someone he intends to murder, he becomes irredeemably reprehensible to me, and I don't enjoy watching movies about people I loathe.

I emphasize that none of my complaints above should be construed as criticism of your video, sir.

 

[Hyper-space]

...a FARCRY from Uwe Boll's usual gratuitous style

Pun intended?

Otherwise, smashing job on the video, as always.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I've never seen the movie, and your description of it certainly makes it sound interesting enough to watch, Mr. Sterling, but I'm afraid the film hit a one of my buttons. That scene at the end of your video, where he chats with the cornered woman before murdering her, is one of those things that I just can't abide. The moment a killer starts toying with someone he intends to murder, he becomes irredeemably reprehensible to me, and I don't enjoy watching movies about people I loathe.

I emphasize that none of my complaints above should be construed as criticism of your video, sir.

Well, the young gentleman you see there goes on a bit of a rampage, killing quite a number of people - violently. He's portrayed as a rather normal type of guy - imagine the ubiquitous "he was a nice neighbour!" line - before he takes to dressing up and shooting people dead.

Thanks to Jim for putting that scene right there, for everyone actually instantly knows if this movie is anywhere right up their alley or not. I consider the movie to be worthwhile, recommendable and somewhat important. Do I condone the sort of senseless violence portrayed? Hell no. It's way less glorious than, say, Natural Born Killers. Besides, 'reprehensible' is the least one should come up with when witnessing the action on screen.

It's not an Oscar circus type of movie. But it addresses a real life phenomenon in a way that enables reflection, discussion and thought.

Bear in mind that, to my best knowledge, Boll was the only one addressing the strategic murderous violence of the Janjaweed in movie form with Darfur, which very well deserves my respect no matter what idiotic utterances or horribly bad movies he's made before.

He's German, he's a hack, he used to be a glitch in the system. I still wouldn't much trust him, but Rampage and Darfur can be all shit sandwich with cheese, I still consider them to be important. Even if you are absolutely not willing to put up with the fictional violence they contain, I find it important to acknowledge that they address real world violence, in a way that's rather unique, for lack of a better description. They are not 'good movies' but I think what they achieve by their mere existence is that they shame the whole civilized world by not even trying to do better than freakin' Uwe Bull. All sorts of huge budget crap movies come in pairs or get sequels or spin-offs or ripped off. I've yet to see any other movie just mentioning the constant threat of violence (as in torture, rape, murder, arson and whatnot), when everybody else seems to avoid the subject.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Movie Defense Force's motto: This movie isn't good, but it isn't bad either.

You're doing a fantastic job of defending the meh, Jim, but why does the mediocre need defending when there's so much brilliant stuff out there being ignored?

 

[JimB]

[various stuff about why the movie is important]

And all that's fine. I just don't want to watch it. The character is a hateful shithead, and I deal with hateful shitheads all day in real life. I watch movies so I can get away from hateful shitheads and laugh at pot-smoking teddy bears or green gorillas beating up space whales or whatever.

 

[Starik20X6]

Nice review, Jim. Haven't seen it, but based on the clips you showed, there's just one problem in taking that one seriously in terms of gritty realism: why is everyone Hollywood thin?

I don't live in America but I've traveled there often and at no point have I ever walked through an American city or small town and encountered nothing but people with sub-20 BMIs. It just smacks "dude goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of actors" as opposed to "dude goes on a rampage and kills and bunch of people" to me and ruins the suspension of disbelief.

It's kind of horrifying that normal-sized people are now apparently unrealistic...

 

[Darth_Payn]

[various stuff about why the movie is important]

And all that's fine. I just don't want to watch it. The character is a hateful shithead, and I deal with hateful shitheads all day in real life. I watch movies so I can get away from hateful shitheads and laugh at pot-smoking teddy bears or green gorillas beating up space whales or whatever.

Exactly what I was thinking. Who is this movie for? Who would want to watch it without being forced to? And is the protagonist (no fucking way he's even an anti-hero) actually Uwe Boll's Author Surrogate character, and it's just his own warped power fantasy put to film?
Now I can't help but think the various gunmen in the news nowadays watched Rampage at somepoint and took inspiration from it in their twisted up little minds. I don't need movies reminding me the world has gun-crazy lunatics in it; that's what the news is for.

 

[barbzilla]

I wouldn't call this American violence, I'd call it violence.

But everyone's speaking in an American accent.

Hollywood thin? Really? I must live in Hollywood then.

Where do you live, then? CDC stats list the average BMI of every single state but Utah as overweight, and Utah is under by a sliver (http://www.insureme.com/insurance/bmi-index-state)>

You've obviously never eaten in a StarBucks during an election year.

I think it's "Starbucks" and yes, I absolutely have. And there were plenty of fat people in it. Or are you suggesting that they stuff them full of thin people on purpose during election years for the cameras? Because that proves my point, really.

Hate to burst your bubble there man, but in most college towns when you are down town it is filled with thin people (though I wouldn't call them all beautiful). That isn't to say there aren't a few, but it is close enough to reality when it comes down to it.

OT: I haven't seen it yet Jim, but I am going to hop on Netflix and give it a go right now. I shall comment later on my findings (though I doubt they will vary, I've held similar beliefs to your other MDF videos.)

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I didn't like this film.

That doesn't mean I didn't appreciate it.

I saw it with my cousin and I remember being chilled to my core. How easy it all was for him. How much we overlook the jerks in line mouthing off about something but preventing me from getting my stuff. It's not a tasteful film, but it's not a tasteful subject.

To dismiss this film because it has subject matter against your morals is a folly. It's against my morals too, but I get why. The main character wasn't sympathetic to me' he wasn't deep, he was very, very child-like with his reasoning, and his smug belief that his morals were better than everyone else's. He was stunted and he was angry. And he used that to his benefit.

I see a lot of that smug belief that one's view is better than everyone else's, and that everyone deserves the bitterness that befalls them. Hell, you don't have to go very far to find that on the internet. That not so quiet rage because everything isn't to your liking that has bubbled up past the surface. I defy you to go one day without finding a cue of that. Then you get why this movie was so effective.

It was horrifying with how real and easy it all could be. It's an alarm going off that says hey, even middle America isn't safe. The quiet town that is so full of it's safety and good values. A lesson we sadly had to learn for real last year.

 

[daxterx2005]

I watched and enjoyed this film before I knew it was an Uwe film...
Safe to say I was shocked.

 

[Zer0Saber]

I saw it, I liked it, and I didn't expect that ending.

 

[JimB]

Who is this movie for?

People who don't realize that murderers and monsters are still human beings with human motivations, and that violence is ugly and not dramatic, I suppose. And that's not a bad purpose for a movie; it really and truly isn't. However, I already know these things, and don't want to watch this movie. I am not pissed off enough by the five seconds of footage I'm griping about to make a stink over it if I'm at someone's house and they toss the disc into the 360, but I certainly have no interest in seeking it out for myself, nor even of watching it on TV if there's a rerun of Law & Order I could be watching instead.

 

[barbzilla]

While the movie's subject matter was good, I find the realism highly lacking. I had a very hard time with suspension of disbelief. The armor suit would have been very unreliable due to ricochets and the laughable responses from the police (not to mention getting firearms like that shipped to an unverified dealer without proper identification and paperwork is damn near impossible, it would have been more believable had he bought them on the street).

On the plus side (for the film, not the subject matter) the character was somewhat believable and I think that is the only thing that made this movie striking at all. The ending was fairly well thought out (except for all of the ammo casings have his fingerprints on them) so I will also give it that.

All in all it wasn't a bad movie, it wasn't great. It did the job at showing why senseless violence is so horrible, so thumbs up I guess.

 

[Darks63]

Saw this movie a few times, its awesome, clever in its way with the ending. How the main character planned everything and how he did it. Worse part is, he is a likable guy.


Just seems his game related movies suck ass.

thanks for this i was feeling bad about thinking this film looked awesome guess im not alone in that after all.

OT: Jim You savin Hellraiser 3 for a rainy day or what?

 

[Artemis923]

Ah, the one Uwe Boll movie that's actually quite good.

It's a brutal movie that shouldn't be enjoyable to watch, and it isn't. But the subject matter and the way it's portrayed is so well done that it makes for a good movie.

 

[Hunter Creed]

I wouldn't call this American violence, I'd call it violence.

But everyone's speaking in an American accent.

Hollywood thin? Really? I must live in Hollywood then.

Where do you live, then? CDC stats list the average BMI of every single state but Utah as overweight, and Utah is under by a sliver (http://www.insureme.com/insurance/bmi-index-state)>

You've obviously never eaten in a StarBucks during an election year.

I think it's "Starbucks" and yes, I absolutely have. And there were plenty of fat people in it. Or are you suggesting that they stuff them full of thin people on purpose during election years for the cameras? Because that proves my point, really.

If we follow the BMI, Brad Pitt and Michael Jordan are overweight. Russle Crowe and George Clooney are obese.