I have to say I'm quite shocked by the generally positive fan- reception of Uwe Boll's latest cinematic opus- the sequel "Rampage 2: Capital Punishment." Frankly, because I thought this film marked a step back for Boll after the problematic-but-oddly-satisfying original. Yes, to me, this film felt much like Boll's more infamous early work ("House of the Dead", "BloodRayne", etc.) in that it came off as far too cheap, seems obviously quickly thrown together as a cash-grab, and suffers some bizarrely poor writing.
But hey, to each his own, I guess.
The film follows the continuing exploits of the mass murderer Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher in a phenomenal performance... especially for the sub- par material), a man whose world-weariness has caused him to go rogue and attempt to educate the world of its many social and political, all while making dramatic examples by killing off random people in his titular rampages. This time Bill's goal is to raid and take over a television news station, in order to publicly broadcast a personal recording and live interview so he can reach new audiences with his "messages" and ideals.
And while this does sound like a promising set-up, the film quickly implodes under the weight of its cheap production and writer/director Boll's laughable attempts at writing socio-political material.
To start, this film is extremely hard to watch. Not due to graphic violence or shocking content, mind you. No, it's hard to watch because it's just so poorly made. Production value and general mood are non-existent with an obvious lack of budget and and even bigger lack of creativity. The film is predominately confined to a single location (the television studio), which presents a good opportunity to build a sense of dread through isolation and claustrophobia, but the boring shaky-cam camera-work and haphazard guidance of Boll do nothing to build off of this. It's just clearly being thrown together without much thought, outside of "let's shake and zoom the camera every 2 seconds to try and falsely manufacture a sense of grit."
The fact that the scope is drastically reduced does also betray the material, especially after the larger, more "important" and impacting feel of the original. And the bizarre over-use of stock- footage (I would estimate up to 30% of the film is just repeated flashbacks of the original) makes it feel all the more cheap and thrown-together for the sake of a quick cash-in on the minor success of the first film. It's pretty bankrupt from a creative standpoint, and shows a lack of thought or planning.
The writing takes a rather large drastic plunge as well. While I did have some issues with the first film's messy narrative, it worked within the confines of the story that Boll was trying to tell. Here, everything is just so... forced, contrived and preachy, it feels less like an honest effort from a filmmaker, and more like the pretentious ramblings of a first-year film-student's thesis work. Dialog ranges from laughable to groan-inducing, the social-political messages are forced in with all the subtlety of a brick-to-the-face, and the aimless writing will give you whiplash with how horrible it goes through shifts in focus.
The most cringe-worthy scene being a bizarre sequence in which Bill (who Boll is clearly trying to build up as an anti-hero) goes on a bizarrely contrived rant against yoga of all things, making tenuous random thought-connections in order to justify violence against an innocent woman. Seriously Boll... you're so bitter against the world, you now have to attack yoga as though it's a death-sentence worthy crime? Not to mention, this scene and others like it undermine the entire message of the film by making everything that comes out of Bill's mouth sound like psychotic ravings, instead of intelligent thought. So congratulations, Boll... you invalidated your own darned film and everything it's trying to say.
The only saving grace here- indeed the only reason you may want to consider watching the film- is for the amazing performance of Brendan Fletcher. Fletcher is obviously having a great deal of fun with the material, and seems to have a lot of faith in the concept. This is an award-worthy role for Fletcher, and it's a shame he's so devoting himself to such bad filmmaking.
This is a tragic mess by any stretch of the imagination. It's cheap, forced, aimless and displays some truly poor examples of filmmaking.
And for that, I am giving "Rampage 2: Capital Punishment" a very poor 3 out of 10.
But hey, to each his own, I guess.
The film follows the continuing exploits of the mass murderer Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher in a phenomenal performance... especially for the sub- par material), a man whose world-weariness has caused him to go rogue and attempt to educate the world of its many social and political, all while making dramatic examples by killing off random people in his titular rampages. This time Bill's goal is to raid and take over a television news station, in order to publicly broadcast a personal recording and live interview so he can reach new audiences with his "messages" and ideals.
And while this does sound like a promising set-up, the film quickly implodes under the weight of its cheap production and writer/director Boll's laughable attempts at writing socio-political material.
To start, this film is extremely hard to watch. Not due to graphic violence or shocking content, mind you. No, it's hard to watch because it's just so poorly made. Production value and general mood are non-existent with an obvious lack of budget and and even bigger lack of creativity. The film is predominately confined to a single location (the television studio), which presents a good opportunity to build a sense of dread through isolation and claustrophobia, but the boring shaky-cam camera-work and haphazard guidance of Boll do nothing to build off of this. It's just clearly being thrown together without much thought, outside of "let's shake and zoom the camera every 2 seconds to try and falsely manufacture a sense of grit."
The fact that the scope is drastically reduced does also betray the material, especially after the larger, more "important" and impacting feel of the original. And the bizarre over-use of stock- footage (I would estimate up to 30% of the film is just repeated flashbacks of the original) makes it feel all the more cheap and thrown-together for the sake of a quick cash-in on the minor success of the first film. It's pretty bankrupt from a creative standpoint, and shows a lack of thought or planning.
The writing takes a rather large drastic plunge as well. While I did have some issues with the first film's messy narrative, it worked within the confines of the story that Boll was trying to tell. Here, everything is just so... forced, contrived and preachy, it feels less like an honest effort from a filmmaker, and more like the pretentious ramblings of a first-year film-student's thesis work. Dialog ranges from laughable to groan-inducing, the social-political messages are forced in with all the subtlety of a brick-to-the-face, and the aimless writing will give you whiplash with how horrible it goes through shifts in focus.
The most cringe-worthy scene being a bizarre sequence in which Bill (who Boll is clearly trying to build up as an anti-hero) goes on a bizarrely contrived rant against yoga of all things, making tenuous random thought-connections in order to justify violence against an innocent woman. Seriously Boll... you're so bitter against the world, you now have to attack yoga as though it's a death-sentence worthy crime? Not to mention, this scene and others like it undermine the entire message of the film by making everything that comes out of Bill's mouth sound like psychotic ravings, instead of intelligent thought. So congratulations, Boll... you invalidated your own darned film and everything it's trying to say.
The only saving grace here- indeed the only reason you may want to consider watching the film- is for the amazing performance of Brendan Fletcher. Fletcher is obviously having a great deal of fun with the material, and seems to have a lot of faith in the concept. This is an award-worthy role for Fletcher, and it's a shame he's so devoting himself to such bad filmmaking.
This is a tragic mess by any stretch of the imagination. It's cheap, forced, aimless and displays some truly poor examples of filmmaking.
And for that, I am giving "Rampage 2: Capital Punishment" a very poor 3 out of 10.