This is a long, slow, boring indie movie that has little to no zombie action and what little there is fails to satisfy. It's more of an indie art-house movie with a little comedy thrown in than horror. The story is about two buddies trying to survive months after the zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately, it's super-easy to do when the budget can't afford any cool action scenes--not even one. The violence is all off-camera or way off in the distance.
The bearded guy (who is also the director) is a decent actor but looks like Zach Gillifinakis from The Hangover but with crappy forearm tattoos. The other guy is a weak actor who has a stupid, annoying character that deserves to get killed for constantly putting himself and his buddy at risk. For example, he listens to loud music with headphones out in the open, which is a really bad idea because he can't hear zombies sneaking up, and he never learns his lesson! I would leave that jerk behind if he tried that a second time. Unfortunately, the bearded guy lets his moron pal hang around with predictable results. However, in an attempt to both "prank" this jerk and teach him how to kill zombies on his own, the bearded guy throws a hungry zombie in his room and locks the door on him while the guy is sleeping, yelling at him to wake up and use the baseball bat he left in the room for that purpose. Wow. That is pure sociopathic evil, totally unlikable, and a whole lot worse than beating his ass and leaving him behind. So neither character ends up being likable. No likable characters = no likable movie. Screen writing 101, dude!
On a positive note, I will say I enjoyed most of the soundtrack, which is some kind of Johnny Cash-inspired weirdness. Unfortunately, it's used all too often as an excuse to drag scenes out into awful montages like the director dancing around in his underwear ala Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Um, no thanks, dude. Nobody wants to see that!
Liberal fast-forwarding is required to get through this snoozer's interminable run time. That's not to say The Battery is terrible in the way most SyFy Channel movies are, it's just not the kind of zombie movie most people want to see (then again, neither is Steven Seagal or Levar Burton vs. zombies, but at least those movies have gory action and decent zombie make-up). I found some of the "guy talk" dialog amusing, but the movie didn't seem to get going until a hostage scene over an hour in, then it was over and the two guys spent the rest of the movie (at least another half hour!) trapped in their car, peeing in bottles and eating tuna fish out of cans. The big action/revenge scene that was promised never pays off and the movie just ends.
Man, this movie needed tighter editing. Scenes drag on forever with nothing interesting happening. Also, during the trapped scene, they leave the windows partly rolled down so the zombies can reach into the car! WTF? And it's patently obvious the zombie actors are trying not to reach in very far and are acting all wimpy about trying to break in and grab the guys. One zombie, a bearded old man on the right-hand side of the car at the beginning of the siege, is a horrible actor who keeps looking into the camera for direction and is barely pawing at the glass. The zombie make-up is terrible, just some blood splashes and dark circles under the eyes. The only thing worse than crappy-looking zombies is crappy-acting zombies, of which this movie has more than its share of both.
The glowing reviews seem to be from the cast and crew and their friends and family. No doubt anyone voting this review "unhelpful" is one of them.
The bearded guy (who is also the director) is a decent actor but looks like Zach Gillifinakis from The Hangover but with crappy forearm tattoos. The other guy is a weak actor who has a stupid, annoying character that deserves to get killed for constantly putting himself and his buddy at risk. For example, he listens to loud music with headphones out in the open, which is a really bad idea because he can't hear zombies sneaking up, and he never learns his lesson! I would leave that jerk behind if he tried that a second time. Unfortunately, the bearded guy lets his moron pal hang around with predictable results. However, in an attempt to both "prank" this jerk and teach him how to kill zombies on his own, the bearded guy throws a hungry zombie in his room and locks the door on him while the guy is sleeping, yelling at him to wake up and use the baseball bat he left in the room for that purpose. Wow. That is pure sociopathic evil, totally unlikable, and a whole lot worse than beating his ass and leaving him behind. So neither character ends up being likable. No likable characters = no likable movie. Screen writing 101, dude!
On a positive note, I will say I enjoyed most of the soundtrack, which is some kind of Johnny Cash-inspired weirdness. Unfortunately, it's used all too often as an excuse to drag scenes out into awful montages like the director dancing around in his underwear ala Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Um, no thanks, dude. Nobody wants to see that!
Liberal fast-forwarding is required to get through this snoozer's interminable run time. That's not to say The Battery is terrible in the way most SyFy Channel movies are, it's just not the kind of zombie movie most people want to see (then again, neither is Steven Seagal or Levar Burton vs. zombies, but at least those movies have gory action and decent zombie make-up). I found some of the "guy talk" dialog amusing, but the movie didn't seem to get going until a hostage scene over an hour in, then it was over and the two guys spent the rest of the movie (at least another half hour!) trapped in their car, peeing in bottles and eating tuna fish out of cans. The big action/revenge scene that was promised never pays off and the movie just ends.
Man, this movie needed tighter editing. Scenes drag on forever with nothing interesting happening. Also, during the trapped scene, they leave the windows partly rolled down so the zombies can reach into the car! WTF? And it's patently obvious the zombie actors are trying not to reach in very far and are acting all wimpy about trying to break in and grab the guys. One zombie, a bearded old man on the right-hand side of the car at the beginning of the siege, is a horrible actor who keeps looking into the camera for direction and is barely pawing at the glass. The zombie make-up is terrible, just some blood splashes and dark circles under the eyes. The only thing worse than crappy-looking zombies is crappy-acting zombies, of which this movie has more than its share of both.
The glowing reviews seem to be from the cast and crew and their friends and family. No doubt anyone voting this review "unhelpful" is one of them.