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Reviews
Robot World (2015)
Surprisingly excellent
If like me you spend more time paging through streaming services looking for something decent to watch than actually watching movies, then you probably have a similar process of compiling a shortlist of movies that don't have stupid titles, don't have stupid covers, aren't made by a certain science fiction channel, and don't have a blurb featuring the words "zombie" or "found footage". I then run my list past IMDb's and other aggregators' reviews to arrive at the Least Worst Film.
And thus it was with "Robot World", which nearly didn't make the cut because it doesn't feature at all on most review sites, and has a different name on IMDb ("Reconnoiter"), all of which are usually very bad signs indeed.
But on this particular evening the competition was unusually dire, so I decided to go for it, and boy was I glad I did!
This film has a tiny crew, no doubt a tiny budget, and practically no cast at all. Yet it delivers a tight, well-plotted, well-paced story with considerable aplomb, and surprisingly decent visual effects to boot. At times it reminded me of Moon, Sunshine, or Extant, and is heavily influenced by 2001 and Battlestar Galactica. Maybe a hint of Blake's 7 (upholstery, mainly).
This exceedingly fine British film is 1000 times better than most of the dross out there that has 1000 times the budget, and I hope that Rendered Pictures go from strength to strength. It is so refreshing to be *pleasantly* surprised by on online movie these days.
Do yourself a favour and watch it, then find their website and read the production blog, and marvel at how such a film came to be!
Infected (2013)
beyond dreadful
This is not entertainment, it's anti-tainment. If you've rented this for say 99p, I'd say you'd have a strong case for getting your money back under the Sale of Goods Act, because it is not fit for purpose. You won't even enjoy this if you enjoy bad horror films, because this is not bad in a good-natured, well meaning way - it's bad in a needing-to-go-to-the-dentist-for-a-filling kind of way.
Mundane. Boring. Utterly devoid of interest, it is something that must be merely endured. If you've had the misfortune to buy this, I urge you to destroy it without watching it. Take your time about it, it's the only way you're going to have any fun here. A lot of people were involved in making this film, yet astoundingly not one of them seems to have thought "hold on, this is crap, isn't it?" All of these people should be stripped of whatever filmic credentials they possess and prevented from working in the industry again, under threat of lengthy jail time. Their equipment should be slowly crushed in front of them, until they get the message: "this is not for you - find something else to do. Shame on you. Shame on you." As for Madsen and Forsythe's involvement.....I am flabbergasted. I can only assume somebody's got a big sheaf of very incriminating photos indeed locked away in a safety deposit box somewhere.
I found myself wanting to fast forward to get to the adverts, only to realise there were none. I longed for the superior plot, dialogue, casting and scoring of say, your average Go Compare advert.