Battalion
Release Date: January 9, 2018
Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes
Reviewed By: Reel Reviews Over Brews
After a war against an enemy from another world breaks out in the South Pacific, a group of freshly recruited U.S. Marines are sent to the front lines.
Save your money and wait until Battalion ends up on the SYFY channel at 3AM one week night and even then, save your time. The acting, the graphics, the sound, and the story line were all terrible. With Unlimited Graphic Design Service available, they could have created the best graphics. The story line was hard to follow. It had potential, in the beginning, but didn’t follow through. I sure wish I could get that hour and a half back… if I could, I’d spend it on another Infinity War session! Actually, you’re even wasting your time reading this. I wish I could find one minute aspect that was worth talking about, but unfortunately there isn’t. Maybe they were going for the Sharknado plan, where it was so bad that it turns out to be good… well, they missed there too. Battalion reminded me a bit of Starship Troopers, but much, much worse. Like a high school AV class version. Hopefully you’ll take my advise and skip this one and let’s keep our fingers crossed they don’t try to make a sequel.
Reel ROB Rating: 1.5 out of 10 stars
Post Credits Scene: No
We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review!
Dominic Monaghan shells out the sarcasm and darkness with joy. He is quirky and creepy and has multiple levels of intrigue. As expected I was treated to nothing less than a fantastic performance from him. I would watch him in anything. Sarah Habel‘s performance, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. Her delivery of the dialogue feels mostly unbelievable. She does progress as the film rolls on, but I would tag her as the weakest of the 3 person cast. Tom Sizemore easily fills out a complex character in both screen presence and performance. He and Monaghan are a wonderful pairing. 
The film’s overall aesthetic is brilliant. It strikes the perfect balance of a small time Bladerunner meets Alien. The holographic CG is stunning against the rusted out, spacious feel of the rest of the sets. Lighting, whether overwhelmingly bright or damn near pitch black elevates the sense of solitude and impending dread. The script is much more complex than it appears to be. You will not know what’s truly unfolding until the very end. You can certainly try and guess, but writers Kevin Burke, Fred Fernandez-Armesto, Adam Gyngell definitely keep you on your toes. You can catch Atomica in select theaters this Friday, the 17th and on VOD and Digital HDMarch 21st.
The Twilight Zone is still one of my favorite shows in television history. Each episode has an unpredictable storyline and a twist ending. The new film THE SIMILARS (LOS PARECIDOS) might be using the beloved series as a blueprint for its overwhelmingly creepy premise. Director Isaac Ezban gives us a glorious gift is shock and awe in this homage to one of the greats. 
The film opens with a visual precision that is truly impressive. It is set in 1968, in a bus station, 5 hours outside of Mexico City. A massive rain storm has stranded an eclectic group of strangers. No buses are arriving at the station and vague messages are streaming from a radio connected to the speaker system. The singular phone is connecting sporadically and everyone is on edge. The mood gets more tense when the group begins experiencing odd symptoms, one by one. Why is this happening? Can it be stopped? 
From the lighting to the costumes and the superb writing, the story zooms into action from opening to end credits. Constantly making you guess and jaw drop, The Similars is one hell of a ride into the unbelievable. The cast is a director’s dream and their chemistry and delivery is both period appropriate and fantastic. There is not one single moment in its entire run that bored me or lost my attention. I was impressed at the level of weird and wanted desperately to know how it would all end. Writer/Director Isaac Ezban has given us a real gift with this film and I cannot wait to see what comes next.
You must be logged in to post a comment.