This is nasty.
In more ways than one.
The premise sees a small squad of Russian commandos on an insurgency "mission" into Eastern Germany in WW2. Two cameramen are taggng along to record their glorious exploits for Uncle Joe and the folks back home. But someone in the squad has an agenda and the "mission" isn't quite what the grunts have been led to believe. More about that later.
This film taught me some things about history and the history of film technology I wasn't previously aware of. Having seen actual grainy, jumpy and blurry colour archive footage from WW2 I didn't know lens and chip technology was actually so advanced at the time that digital colour filtering and other effects were readily available back then. Or that picture clarity was incredibly refined and sharp and that Dolby Digital sound was easily achievable. This being a found-footage flick, the footage shown us certainly looks and sounds much better and much more advanced in quality and up to date than most of the other modern equivalents I've seen, like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, CLOVERFIELD, ZOMBIE DIARIES, REC, THE LAST EXORCISM, etc. Guess cam technology retrogressively devolves as time and science advances.
Well, no, it doesn't and it hasn't. If you want to make a found footage flick set in a certain historical period in the past it's a good idea to at least have the sound and visuals reflect that period a bit. Like, say, APOLLO 18. Otherwise, don't make it a found footage flick. Film it straight. Because to my mind, jerking the cam around a lot isn't enough to convince on any level. And FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY has enough arresting visual flair, striking art direction and special effects going on to make it more than worthy of a straight shoot. The "found footage" gimmick is redundant here and mostly ruins the film.
So the real mission of the squad - who, by the way, have no real individual personalities and are largely aggressive, mentally challenged loud-mouths - is to find one Dr Frankenstein and bring him back to Mother Russia to assist with the Commie war effort.
Frankie is a bit of a fly in the ointment, though. Having gone completely off his skull he is obsessively churning out an army made of dead organic flesh fused with robotics and scrap WW2 war machinery. This is the crowning glory of the movie - the bastard creations of the good doctor. Imagine the Nazi zombies of DEAD SNOW married with radical steam-punk mechanics that consist of propellers, caterpillar tracks, binoculars, machine guns, blades, cogs, hydraulics, wheels and the like whilst being completely, blindly homicidally insane. The resulting creatures are imaginative and jaw-dropping to behold - especially when combined with some excellent Dolby rendered sound effects (clanking, hissing, groaning, clattering, roaring and exploding).
I said it was nasty in more ways than one. The shaky cam is nasty enough. And so is the continuous unrelenting violence, blood, gore, torture, graphic surgery, guts, viscera and physical atrocity that dominantly pervade the second half. It is a drawn out hymn to butchery and sadism that feels like it goes on forever. And then some. So excessive and sustained that it quickly becomes anaesthetising and loses all impact and meaning. Arguably it's aiming for a comic book aesthetic, but with a complete lack of character development for anyone it just becomes a mindless exercise in slaughter without consequence or point.
Gorehounds may well love it for the last half, but I found it hard to maintain interest. Frankie's monsters are really spectacular to behold and I think most viewers would be impressed. The narrative is flaky and has more holes than a mountain of Swiss cheese. All the actors are loud and shouty. And the "found footage" hook trashes the remotest chance of suspension of disbelief and tries the patience to extremes.
Good, creative ideas, some compelling visual creativity, but the poor scripting, histrionic direction and mind-numbing execution significantly slap it down to being just another case of the shakes.
In more ways than one.
The premise sees a small squad of Russian commandos on an insurgency "mission" into Eastern Germany in WW2. Two cameramen are taggng along to record their glorious exploits for Uncle Joe and the folks back home. But someone in the squad has an agenda and the "mission" isn't quite what the grunts have been led to believe. More about that later.
This film taught me some things about history and the history of film technology I wasn't previously aware of. Having seen actual grainy, jumpy and blurry colour archive footage from WW2 I didn't know lens and chip technology was actually so advanced at the time that digital colour filtering and other effects were readily available back then. Or that picture clarity was incredibly refined and sharp and that Dolby Digital sound was easily achievable. This being a found-footage flick, the footage shown us certainly looks and sounds much better and much more advanced in quality and up to date than most of the other modern equivalents I've seen, like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, CLOVERFIELD, ZOMBIE DIARIES, REC, THE LAST EXORCISM, etc. Guess cam technology retrogressively devolves as time and science advances.
Well, no, it doesn't and it hasn't. If you want to make a found footage flick set in a certain historical period in the past it's a good idea to at least have the sound and visuals reflect that period a bit. Like, say, APOLLO 18. Otherwise, don't make it a found footage flick. Film it straight. Because to my mind, jerking the cam around a lot isn't enough to convince on any level. And FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY has enough arresting visual flair, striking art direction and special effects going on to make it more than worthy of a straight shoot. The "found footage" gimmick is redundant here and mostly ruins the film.
So the real mission of the squad - who, by the way, have no real individual personalities and are largely aggressive, mentally challenged loud-mouths - is to find one Dr Frankenstein and bring him back to Mother Russia to assist with the Commie war effort.
Frankie is a bit of a fly in the ointment, though. Having gone completely off his skull he is obsessively churning out an army made of dead organic flesh fused with robotics and scrap WW2 war machinery. This is the crowning glory of the movie - the bastard creations of the good doctor. Imagine the Nazi zombies of DEAD SNOW married with radical steam-punk mechanics that consist of propellers, caterpillar tracks, binoculars, machine guns, blades, cogs, hydraulics, wheels and the like whilst being completely, blindly homicidally insane. The resulting creatures are imaginative and jaw-dropping to behold - especially when combined with some excellent Dolby rendered sound effects (clanking, hissing, groaning, clattering, roaring and exploding).
I said it was nasty in more ways than one. The shaky cam is nasty enough. And so is the continuous unrelenting violence, blood, gore, torture, graphic surgery, guts, viscera and physical atrocity that dominantly pervade the second half. It is a drawn out hymn to butchery and sadism that feels like it goes on forever. And then some. So excessive and sustained that it quickly becomes anaesthetising and loses all impact and meaning. Arguably it's aiming for a comic book aesthetic, but with a complete lack of character development for anyone it just becomes a mindless exercise in slaughter without consequence or point.
Gorehounds may well love it for the last half, but I found it hard to maintain interest. Frankie's monsters are really spectacular to behold and I think most viewers would be impressed. The narrative is flaky and has more holes than a mountain of Swiss cheese. All the actors are loud and shouty. And the "found footage" hook trashes the remotest chance of suspension of disbelief and tries the patience to extremes.
Good, creative ideas, some compelling visual creativity, but the poor scripting, histrionic direction and mind-numbing execution significantly slap it down to being just another case of the shakes.