Rampage: Capital Punishment (2014) Review

Time: 93 Minutes
Cast:
Brendan Fletcher as Bill Williamson
Lochlyn Munro as Chip Parker
Mike Dopud as Marc
Michaela Mann as Marlene
Director: Uwe Boll

Violent anti-hero Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher) has a plan to change the world by exacting vengeance on the rich, and ripping Washington apart. He holds a number of people hostage and uses his captives as his political platform to spread his message and awaken humanity. It’s time to destroy the system, and change won’t happen peacefully.

For some of those who saw Rampage, it was a surprise considering Uwe Boll’s other work, which seemed to be almost all bad. Rampage was a simple, yet effective movie which seemed to get most of its necessary aspects right. It wasn’t great by any means but it was okay for what it set out to do. I also seemed to like the sequel, titled Capital Punishment (the movie I’m currently reviewing) when I first saw it. Thinking back to both movies, it dawned on me that they really weren’t that good, especially the second. No doubt, Uwe Boll is actually trying with the Rampage movies but it’s not really done that well. Some of the elements are praiseworthy, especially Brendan Fletcher’s performance. However overall it ultimately now just feels like a ham fisted speakerphone where Uwe Boll could unload all of his political thoughts, and as a movie it’s really not that good.

Instead of main character Bill Williamson going on a killing spree, Bill now decides to take people hostage. It’s more like a contained thriller in one location than an absolute shoot em up. One of the stand out parts about Capital Punishment is that this movie is incredibly preachy, with tons of monologues by Bill and some of the most blatant political commentary I’ve ever seen in a movie. There is no subtlety whatsoever, it’s a little worryingly the way it’s done. It’s not the actual concept that is wrong, it seems like it could be something controversial but interesting. It’s that the execution is really ham fisted with really no thought put into it, like Uwe Boll recorded all of his drunken rants and ramblings and decided to put it into this movie. While there’s clearly some truth to Bill’s words, the film never takes into account the horrible things he does. We don’t need some guy telling us that what he’s doing is wrong, but there’s something troublesome about how the film perceives him. Having a character like this is very difficult to pull off, you have to show some of his positive aspects, while not trying to glorify his actions. Uwe Boll does not do a good job with that. The ending is also just so convenient and lazy, obviously setting up for another instalment in the series.

Brendan Fletcher as Bill Williamson is once again is the best part of the movie. I really hope he gets a lot of great work, because if there’s anything that the Rampage movies have done, it is that it showed off his talent. All the ham fisted monologues that he has to do, Brendan Fletcher elevates with his performance, which is honestly saying a lot. He is very believable and intense in this role and does very well at it. I can’t remember how the other actors did in their roles but I recall that they didn’t particularly stick out. There’s one person who did feel a little out of place, and that person is Uwe Boll. He does have a small cameo in the movie and he didn’t really fit in with the whole experience. He wasn’t terrible but he was a bit of a distraction, even if it was for a brief moment. It doesn’t help that during one monologue by Fletcher’s character, Boll comments that “he’s right”, shameless to say the least, considering that he wrote the movie. It also just makes the movie unsettling as to how Bill and ‘his’ (totally not Uwe Boll’s) messages are seen, and far from a good way.

One improvement over the previous film is that it does have a smoother direction without too much shaky camera. It does use a ton of slow mo, especially when Bill is shooting people, there are times when someone gets hit and it goes into slow mo, seemingly even more gratatious than the first movie. The production design and the general look of the movie is not much better than the first movie, it does have a very amateurish vibe from it. The music is basic as well.

Whereas the first Rampage at least seemed to be balanced, Capital Punishment increases the monologues written personally by Uwe Boll and becomes a preachfest and it becomes really annoying and self indulgent. There’s pretty much no reason to watch Capital Punishment outside of Brendan Fletcher, who really does deserve better than Uwe Boll. I’m not looking forward to reviewing the third and final Rampage movie but I’ll be glad that it’ll be over.

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In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Tale (2007) Review

Time: 127 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Jason Statham as Farmer
Leelee Sobieski as Muriella
John Rhys-Davies as Merick
Ron Perlman as Norick
Claire Forlani as Solana
Kristanna Loken as Elora
Matthew Lillard as Duke Fallow
Ray Liotta as Gallian
Burt Reynolds as King Konreid
Brian White as Commander Tarish
Mike Dopud as General Backler
Will Sanderson as Basstian
Tania Saulnier as Talwyn
Gabrielle Rose as Delinda
Terence Kelly as Trumaine
Colin Ford as Zeph
Director: Uwe Boll

A farmer (Jason Statham) sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife (Claire Forlani) and avenge the death of his son — two acts committed by the Krugs, a race of animal-warriors who are controlled by the evil Gallian (Ray Liotta).

I wasn’t expecting anything when I was going into this movie, Uwe Boll’s first two Bloodrayne movies caused me to have this feeling. For an Uwe Boll movie though, it isn’t as bad as Bloodrayne 2; the movie does have at times decent action scenes. However this movie still wasn’t good on its own, it still has a bad story, average to terrible acting along with having a lot of things from Lord of the Rings which did bother me from time to time.

The story doesn’t have anything interesting to offer, made worse with the movie being 2 hours long, it should’ve been shorter. The first act was set up poorly with characters that I didn’t feel attached to, not helping this is the dialogue which is poorly written, uninteresting and doesn’t further develop the characters. This may be an aside but Statham’s character is literally called Farmer. The most boring part of the movie was the second act, there wasn’t much going on. The third act was the most entertaining and had a whole lot of action scenes which were done okay but they didn’t have much story to link them together to make them interesting. The film has many plot holes, like in one of the final fights with Jason Statham and Ray Liotta, Liotta doesn’t use his magic at the beginning, despite being able to get rid of him in an instant. This movie also took a lot of things from Lord of the Rings, for example the last big battle scene was very similar to the Helms Deep scene from The Two Towers. Even the Krugs seemed very much like the Orcs. The writer of this movie actually rewrote 80% of the script because it felt too much like Lord of the Rings, it’s not just me finding it familiar.

This film has a good cast, none of whom brings much to the movie. Jason Statham doesn’t make much of an impression here, he’s much better in other movies but I will say that he does well in the action scenes, as he usually does. Ron Perlman gives the best performance in the movie, he’s one of those actors who can bring anything to a movie but unfortunately his character still wasn’t given any depth or attention. Burt Reynolds is for some reason in this movie but he just didn’t bring anything to the movie; he looks like he doesn’t want to be there and is quite underwhelming and boring. On the complete other end from acting bored is Ray Liotta who plays the villain and is completely over the top. If you’ve seen the two Bloodrayne movies, you know that Uwe Boll doesn’t know how to direct actors in playing villains. A prime example is when Liotta shares a scene with Matthew Lillard, it’s like they are competing in a ‘worst performance’ competition.

The action scenes in the first act of the movie are done poorly, the camera shook and cut often and they aren’t filmed well. Later on the action scenes improved, the camera didn’t cut and it was steady, however they weren’t very interesting or entertaining, they were just okay.

I will say that this movie is better than some of Uwe Boll’s other movies but this is still a bad movie. It has the many things that Uwe Boll movies have, bad acting, poor writing, average cinematography and has many plot holes, on top of feeling too much like Lord of the Rings. In short, the movie is a poor man’s Lord of the Rings, it’s the best way to describe it. I heard that Uwe Boll made a good movie, Rampage, I would really like to see it sometime; I need to take a break from his movies.