Frankenstein's Army

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jonbly
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Frankenstein's Army

Post by jonbly »

3/10 - nice concept, and really good work on sets, costumes and props. But the wobble-cam was unbearable, and the sound effects were all stuck on 11. Combat made the creatures look laughably inept. Pretty much unwatchable.
Last edited by jonbly on Sat Aug 24, 2013 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DJBenz
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by DJBenz »

Great creature design, not convinced by the found footage and the cameraman's ability to keep hold of the camera at all times, even when being attacked by giant robo-lobsters. The audio in the Empire made it really difficult to make out the dialogue, I've seen this before on screener and there were no such problems.

6/10
FranksWildYears
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by FranksWildYears »

I'd wondered if it was just me who couldn't make out a word of it, and I thought the start was slow and plodding (maybe the fear of another Outpost 2 was sneaking in) but despite the awful wobbliness this was great fun, the monsters were some of the best designed I've seen in years and a good value mad scientist as well. Big up the giant robo lobsters :D.
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Stephen with ph
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by Stephen with ph »

My heart sank at the found-footage beginning but, as the level of silliness increased, I got swept up despite myself. The monsters were excellent, the gore was ludicrous and the joie de vivre (?) was ultimately infectious. Could have been worse, so 7/10
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by danthsmith »

please, please stop the found footage thing. It's over, letys all move on. the film was great fun despite this
ZombieRandm
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by ZombieRandm »

Once the monster reveal occurred, this film was pretty much constant sound and fury for the remainder and with the well realised weaponised man-machines gave an ever present threat that felt implacable. Is this film really going to be allowed uncut past the censors, its pretty brutal and gory, it feels like the kind of film that would have raised the ire of "ban this sick filth" back in the day... 7/10

Really impressed with the monster visualisations. I wanted to ask the director a question earlier and didn't get the chance. Ashley Wood's World War Robot is being optioned/scripted at the moment, and it would be great to see someone like him given some money and the chance to "have at it..."

http://www.threeawiki.com/World_War_Robot

I've written a more wordy review with added haiku here...

http://shapejam.com/blog/haiku-revu-frankensteins-army/
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by bernal316 »

Great movie and some superbly imagined monsters. Maybe took a little to long to bear its teeth but once it did.....
My only issue was the sound!! As already mentioned elsewhere i struggled to make out any of the dialogue, made even worse with the characters accents. Was it just me or do i need to spend less time with the headphones on!!!
7/10
jonbly
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by jonbly »

ZombieRandm wrote:Is this film really going to be allowed uncut past the censors, its pretty brutal and gory, it feels like the kind of film that would have raised the ire of "ban this sick filth" back in the day
No idea where you're getting this from. Nothing jonbly saw would require a cut , and everything had a slapstick comedy feel anyway. It's the realistic stuff that gets cut.


Unless they're going to start cutting wobble-cam...
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by DJBenz »

Not sure if you're aware, but the idea for this film was developed out of Richard Raaphorst's project Worst Case Scenario:



Rights issues meant the project had to be abandoned and started agin from scratch, with Frankenstein's Army being the result. I believe he now has the rights back, so WCS might be something we see from him in the future.
ZombieRandm
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by ZombieRandm »

jonbly wrote:No idea where you're getting this from. Nothing jonbly saw would require a cut , and everything had a slapstick comedy feel anyway. It's the realistic stuff that gets cut.
You can show a relatively realistic brain plus brain stem being ripped out from someone's skull, graphic shots of skulls being cut and lifted off to expose brain and bits of brain being skewered into without any cuts now? I do wonder whether I'm becoming desensitised to pseudo-random mayhem, so I don't really have a frame of reference to say whether this would actually trigger the censors.
ChrisReynolds
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by ChrisReynolds »

The real reason to watch this film are the amazing and brilliantly imaginative creatures that have been created. All of the monsters are unique and fascinating to look at. Unfortunately, when the creatures or piles of corpses aren't on screen the film isn't nearly as interesting, but as the film gets towards the end, the creature appearances become more frequent and there's lots of body parts and mad scientist stuff. What really killed the film for me was the decision to shoot it as found footage. For a start, this is some of the worst camerawork I have seen in a found footage film. The camera shakes about all over the place, especially during the monster attacks so it's very hard to see what's going on. As well as obscuring the magnificent monsters they should have been trying to show off, it also makes it hard for the film to be tense, because it's not clear where the monsters and humans are in relation to each other, and obviously the cameraman has to survive to he can keep filming. 4/10 (Would have been 5 or 6/10 if filmed properly).
jonbly
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by jonbly »

ZombieRandm wrote:You can show a relatively realistic brain plus brain stem being ripped out from someone's skull, graphic shots of skulls being cut and lifted off to expose brain and bits of brain being skewered into without any cuts now?
It's not at all realistic! It's a comedy jelly brain being poked about by a mad scientist. We're one small step from Scooby-Doo here...
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by Dom »

Nice creatures.
Fantastic locations.
Totally kicks itself in the balls by going the found footage route and not being funny or over the top enough.

"Well, that was fucking pointless" summed it up really well.

Shame.

Also, for a WW2 found footage film at least try to make it look like it was shot on film. Digital fail.
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by Wolfshade »

Dialogue was hard to hear, but to be honest it really didn't matter as it wasn't heavy on the plot. First half with the soldiers wasn't great but once the awesome mosters came in this was great fun 7/10

And I really can't see anyone wanting to ban this - if Irreversible and Inside can get released over here, then no one's going to bat an eyelid over this.
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Re: Frankenstein's Army

Post by Jekyll »

Creature designs were very innovative but I still found this rather dull.
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