Mandatory Government Vaccination Program Gone Horribly Wrong..."Dead Rising: Watchtower"

Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)

Not Rated

Starring Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory, Virginia Madsen, Keegan Connor Tracy, Dennis Haysbert, Carrie Genzel, Rob Riggle,

Directed by Zach Lipovsky

The Story:

Chase (Metcalfe), a reporter for Hit Point and his camerawoman Jordan (Tracy) are trying to find a story at a quarantined city in Oregon when they uncover the fact that the government vaccine, Zombrex, isn't working. Chase gets stuck in the city with Crystal (Ory), a woman who has the virus but also has her own supply of Zombrex, and Maggie (Madsen) who just lost her daughter. They have to find a way out of the city before it is blown to bits by the Army under General Lyons (Hasbert) direction.

Video game adaptations are often hit or miss.

Luckily, if you're trying to make a film about killing zombies, the audience will often be very forgiving.

Attach the Dead Rising name to it, and craft a few crazy zombie killing weapons, and you're halfway there.

Provide it a decent script, and you're almost golden.

Thankfully, they managed to do all of that in this film.

It keeps your attention throughout and unlike certain episodes of a certain zombie show, things actually happen. :)

Add to that the hilarious interplay between a reporter (Genzel) and previous survivor (Riggle) as the outbreak drama unfolds. If only the news were allowed to be like that in real life, it would make it worth watching.

I didn't catch it when it was streaming on Crackle.com, but did check out the DVD from Netflix a few months later.  Again, I'm all for any and all of these services offering up alternatives to big studio films.

The more movies, the merrier.

Anyway, if you like zombie movies, you'll probably enjoy this one too.

I did.

Final Grade: C+

Sequel Week Continues: "Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser"

Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser

N/R

Starring David Spade, Brittany Daniel, Mark McGrath, Christopher Walken, Patrick Warburton, Dennis Miller

Directed by Fred Wolf

The Story:

Joe Dirt (Spade) returns! Picking up where the last film left off, Joe and Brandy (Daniel) are happily married and raising three adorable triplet girls. However, a twister sends Joe back in time to 1965, and he must attempt to get back to his life and meet Brandy before the timeline is ruined and Brandy winds up with Jimmy (McGrath) instead.

If ever there was a movie that I never thought I'd see a sequel for, Joe Dirt has got to be right up near the top.

I have unashamedly admitted that I find the original to be hilarious from start to finish, and one that I have no problem watching at anytime.

It's pretty funny, and has a lot of heart.

Well, in the 14 years since we last saw our mulleted friend, it seems like some of the heart was forgotten in the sequel.

There are a few amusing gags and scenes throughout the film, but the backstory narrative that worked so well as Joe described his life in the first one, is kind of overthought and skipped around quite a bit.

It seems like Spade and Wolf thought, hey, if we're taking Joe "Back to the Future", this would be a funny gag, and this would be awesome to do, and this, and this and this...

So it's a lot of ideas that try and tell a story with a weak bridge holding them together.

Almost like an "oh yeah, and Joe loves his kids and Brandy and wants to get back to them."

However, if you're going to borrow, you might as well go with gusto, so besides Back to the Future, It's a Wonderful Life gets a good chunk of plot used in this film as well.

If it sounds like I'm picking on Joe Dirt, well, I guess I am. However, that's what people do with Joe Dirt.

I love the original, it's a classic, cult comedy.

Any sequel has some big shoes to fill, and they don't quite pull it off with the same sincerity of the first film.

I did appreciate that almost the entire cast returns in some shape or form in the sequel. It was fun to see them all together again.

I must also give props for Mark McGrath stepping into Kid Rock's shoes to give us a villain to boo, and someone to never want to eat popcorn with.

Plus, I must give credit to Spade and everyone else who worked to make this film streamable exclusively on Crackle.com.

You get the movie, streamed to your device with just a few commercials randomly inserted along the way.

With the proliferation of shows going to Netflix, Yahoo, Amazon, Hulu, it's neat that movies are going to also be given another venue to be made and seen.

If you enjoyed the first Joe Dirt, this will give you a few glimmers of amusement that make you remember why you really enjoyed that film, and those characters so much.

Lightning like that rarely strikes twice, but I'll give them an A for effort.

The movie however, only a C.

Sorry Joe.