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I was quite surprised when Lovefilm decided to send me Against The Dark, Steven Seagal's latest movie. Not because it wasn't in my rental queue ' it was, albeit as a low priority title. No, what puzzled me was why they'd sent it me when there were seven other high priority titles before it. But having seen the film I'm actually glad they did, because Against The Dark is a truly astonishing film. Never before have I seen a film where the main 'star' has been so blatantly shoehorned into proceedings. Against The Dark should be required viewing for all film students, so as to teach them how not to edit a movie. Against The Dark is a pretty run of the mill monster flick, and without Mr Seagal's brief presence in the film, it would almost have certainly ended up on the Sci-Fi network, probably starring Dean Cain. There's been some sort of global epidemic which has turned most of the world's populace into flesh eating, blood drinking monsters. A bunch of generic looking characters ' none of whom you really learn anything about ' are on the run from the monsters and hole up in abandoned hospital. Which is where the bulk of the movie takes place ' there aren't many outdoor locations in this film, which is a sure sign of a low budget film. It's horror by the numbers - monsters jump out of dark corners and bite people, and there's a bit of gore thrown in for good measure ' all fairly typical stuff. The film's novelty value comes from the way in which Steven Seagal has been inserted into the movie. I don't know if the film was written with him in mind, or if he was drafted in later, but the latter seems likely. Either way, I suspect that the director could only afford to hire him for a couple of days, and as a result the majority of his scenes don't involve the main cast. Half of these scenes have him just wandering around swinging a sword and occasionally kicking a monster. If you're a Seagal fan then you're going to be disappointed ' he doesn't do anything particularly strenuous at all. He's accompanied by a small group of other characters, who don't really say much but who seem do most of the fighting in the film. And it gets even weirder when Seagal's team does meet up with the main cast. Several of the 'conversations' he has with them involve him talking to camera, then the person he's talking to replying, again talking right into the camera. Meaning you don't see him talking directly to the person in question. This was probably done to minimize the amount of time Seagal had to be on set, but it's really, really jarring. Equally odd is the way that even after Seagal's team of vampire hunters and themain cast have come together, there are long segments when the action focuses on the hunters themselves, minus Seagal. There's a bit where one of the hunters says he's going to check a room out, and Seagal lets him go. Whereupon the hunter has a ten minute fight with a bunch of vampires, and Seagal doesn't so much as show up to lend a hand. It's just really, really obvious that the crew had limited use of Seagal. But then again the bad editing is really the only reason to watch this film, If you're a Steven Seagal fan, then you might want to watch some of his other movies, his earlier ones in particular. Against The Dark might be worth checking out for the aforementioned poor editing, but it's not a good film by any means, and certainly not worth buying. 2/5
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Apr 2, 2009 21:29
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 07:53 |
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