Dead Zone (2022)
Saving humanity one vaccine at a time.
My cousin loves Michael Jai white movies, so I found him one for his birthday. The pitch? Looks like a zombie movie, sounds like a spec ops budget-Umbrella Corp movie, and stars a dude that’s absolutely baller at doing fight scenes. How could you not think of it all and go “nah, I don’t want to see this at all.” Try and figure out what Tubi is, tonight is Dead Zone.
There’s an infection and humanity’s bright idea to get rid of it is bombing places. In fairness, it does seem to be zombie style infections, but devil’s advocate perhaps bombing everything and turning it into a “dead zone” full of radiation isn’t perhaps the best thing. Well, a new vaccine is on the books, but it’s unfortunately in one of those dead zones, and word on the military street is that there might be something far worse than a normal running zombie type dude. In goes the best thing the Master Chief has to offer - a five man squad kitted out with band new beta-testing equipment to grab those vials and extract. You can probably guess, but it isn’t long before things go wrong - will they accomplish their mission?
This one is a bit weird from the acting standpoint. Props to the fact that the gear stays on most the movie while in supposedly dangerous zones - but it also likes to make sure you know whose on the acting docket by doing a lot of Iron Man style cut in shot of heads with HUD elements flipped around on it. The actors do a surprisingly good job given how much you see them at just the odd in-helmet angle, and dare I say you even get some decent chemistry amongst them. In all fairness, it’s some pretty basic characters going on here, but the actors don’t feel like they are just phoning it in for a check - but that doesn’t keep it from being completely cheese-less either. Our main even gets a wonderful one-liner at the end the flick, which sometimes feels like a lost art in action flicks.
Characters are a bit basic around here - growth isn’t a thing, and for the most part neither is and sort of real depth. They work together as a unit well, and the interactions between them are generally quite logical and solid. The actors get some moments to shine even with the limitations coming from what I can only assume is the writing. If you aren’t expecting anything beyond your old action standards - but don’t really expect to be super attached to any character because of a ton of depth being provided. You’ll like them because they are likeable enough, and occasionally they’ll make a real dumb decision - but for the most part it’s solid enough that the acting and the characters won’t hurt the enjoyment even in the moments when they don’t really add to it.
Classic Iron Man HUD.
The setting is a supposedly bombed out town, but really it looks like any old thing as far as modern settings go. Yeah, there’s more fences and bodies, but things largely don’t really feel like a dead zone. The buildings even have power still, so in all honesty the setting is very much a dime a dozen - perhaps a bit of a low budget situation? It’s also all at night - which makes sense in the context of a stealth mission - but also meaning that things are all pretty dark. It’s thankfully not AvP:R dark - the crew remembered to light things - but it’s still dark enough that it helps cover up whatever missteps might be brought with a potentially smaller budget in costumes or effects. It won’t be as eye-catching as a space ship or burnt out future city or anything, but it does still provide enough change of spots that it doesn’t feel like it’s all taking pace in one room or anything of that sort.
Costumes and props are mixed, but good enough for me. The hero outfits I love - our lady lead has a wonderful silhouette to the character, and really makes me think of some sneaky post apocalypse game character. Our leads all have some sweet looking body armor - even though it’s not too fancy overall. It’s enough to be cool without being too futuristic, although if I’m honest I’ve never been all that much a fan of the in-helmet shots that look all Iron Man. In my head it’s always just been kind of a clunky thing that doesn’t feel like it’s spatially right, even though I know it’s just so you can see and get more face time with the actors. That being said, it does still look good visually, and the weapons they use (despite being fancied up normal weapons of the day) also all look matching cool. The weak point largely ends up being on the baddy side - the generic zombie look of people with a little fake blood on them for the masses is what it is, but there is only a few that stand out as having a bunch of stuff applied to make them look real different. The fancy villain does have some looks that differentiate him, and at times will look much better than other things.
Audio-wise everything is pretty fine balanced. The music doesn’t stick around with me at all, but i do remember hearing some synth notes in there at one point. I’ll just chalk it up to doing it’s normal job in a movie and let that be. Actors do a fine delivery job, weapon and monster sounds sound fitting, and things generally play out well with audio to make things not too boring. There’s a bunch of commentary a person could probably glean out of here about how humans treat the environment, use or misuse science, or that general sort of thing - I’ll see it, I might log it in my brain long enough to point it out for a review like this, but to say anything other than “high tech armor MJW fighting zombies” was what drew me to the movie would be a lie.
Oh, and some Stalker in here.
I had fun here. The movie had plenty of moments where it was a bit slower than expected, although rather fitting for a stealth mission really. Some elements weren’t as great as others - sometimes the camera work or the cutting job can be a bit less polished than one would hope, but that could also just be the artistic choice they went with. It had an interesting set of costume, a decent enough premise, and it’s acted well enough that you can’t complain for the most part about the good time your having. Overall it’s a pretty solid thing - and if nothing else it makes me wish we had another Umbrella Corp cooperative game from the Resident Evil franchise.