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Battledogs
USA 2013
produced by David Michael Latt, David Rimawi (executive) for The Asylum/SyFy
directed by Alexander Yellen
starring Dennis Haysbert, Ernie Hudson, Kate Vernon, Ariana Richards, Craig Sheffer, Wes Studi, Bill Duke, Benjamin James, Anthony Pacella, Robert S. Bates, Mu-Shaka Benson, Robert Bozek, Darin Cooper, Andrew Elias, Mel Ende, Afrim Gjonbalaj, Cameron Gordon, Wayne W. Johnson, Peace Kelly, Sherri Lyn Litz, Rich Lounello, Patrick Mallette, Michelle Meer, Karl Myles, Joe Narode, Seregon O'Dassey, Mick O'Keefe, Debbie Rochon, Rodney Roldan, Giovanni Roselli, Frank Rossi, Jayson Simba, Brian Staps, Jay Storey, A.J. Verel, Brandyn T. Williams, Michael Sciabarrasi
written by Shane Van Dyke, music by Chris Ridenour, Chis Cano, visual effects by Joseph J. Lawson, assistant director: Gregory Lamberson
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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There's something seriously wrong at the New York JFK airport - wolves
have attacked and killed dozens of passengers, and not just any wolves but
... werewolves. Fortunately the army steps in and manages to round up all
the werewolves, stun them and ship them off to a quarantine center across
the East River (actually Buffalo Central Terminal, a quite impressive art
deco building located somewhere completely else - but a great backdrop
nevertheless). At the quarantine center, soon two fractions within the
army employees start to form: On one side there's General Monning (Dennis
Haysbert) and his second-in-command Parkins (Benjamin James), who want to
locate the werewolf virus to create lupine soldiers, on the other there's
good guy Major Hoffman (Craig Sheffer) and Dr Gordon (Kate Vernon), who
actually want to contain the lycanthropic infection and turn all the
werewolf into normal humans again. Of course, Monning would love to just
get Hoffman out of the way, but Hoffman is his only chance to find patient
zero ... which he does with the help of airport security chief Stevens
(Ernie Hudson) - and it's of course cute, courageous and totally innocent
Donna Voorhees (Ariana Richards), a wildlife photographer who has been
bitten by a werewolf on one of her excursions and whom Hoffman has
befriended since. Once she's revealed to be patient zero, Monning pretty
much wants her taken apart because she has the antivirus in her (actually
there's a werewolf tooth inside her body), but then she turns into a
werewolf during surgery and all hell breaks loose, and all the other
quarantined infected turn into werewolves, break out, and invade
Manhattan. Only Donna can actually be calmed down and turned back into a
human again by ... Hoffman's good nature I suppose - but now she's number
one on Monning's hitlist. However, Hoffman, Donna and the doc manage to
escape the quarantine center and make it to Manhattan themselves (not sure
why), where they actually have their final confrontation with Monning and
company (who are ultimately all taken apart by other werewolves) - and
then the president (Bill Duke) orders Manhattan to be bombed to Kingdom
Come to contain the werewolf disease. Now our heroes have to get off the
island in time, and with the werewolf tooth that contains the formula for
the antidote too, and they have to prevent Manhattan from being bombed. Of
course everything ends happily, but not without a few explosions - oh, and
Donna is allowed to die a heroine's death! For some reason, genre icon
Debbie Rochon, probably the most talented actress in the cast and most
certainly the most prolific and most respected within the genre crowd, is
reduced to the role of a police officer with hardly two lines in this
movie ... By and large, you might want to call this movie
routine, as it's another sci fi/horror/action hybrid as shown on SyFy,
without too much emphasis on atmosphere or shocks (so far for the horror
aspects), or actual visions (regarding the science fiction aspects),
instead concentrating on the spectacle (if on a budget). That said, the
film has a few interesting aspects: It is not carried by the same
unquestioned patriotism many bigger budgeted pictures of its ilk are but
remains critical of the army throughout, despite several leaps of reason,
the narrative buildup is quite ok, and even if the Buffalo Central
Terminal is not in the slightest located where the film would want it to
be (but honestly, would you have known if I hadn't told you?), it's quite
an impressive and underused location. That all said, the film still is
not a hidden masterpiece, not a diamond in the rough even. Basically, it
lacks the budget to tell a story of its scale, its werewolves look
ridiculously ratlike and are much too obviously computer-generated to come
off as threatening, and most other CGI effects (like the bombing of the
Manhattan bridges or a whole neighbourhood) are fine as an idea but look
way too much straight-out-of-a-videogame to get any real feeling across -
get me crappy miniature work instead of this anytime, really. In all, SyFy
has definitely shown worse genre flicks (way worse in fact), but that
hardly makes this one a classic, believe me.
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