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jarlian
Reviews
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012)
A non fan (more balanced) review
When I was a kid I watched the old BSG and I watched all the new BSG episodes which I enjoyed (except for a few twists that felt written by the writers who also wrote "Lost"). I skipped Caprica because the storyline sounded to much like a soap opera to me (forgive me if I was wrong).
Blood & Chrome appealed to me and kinda delivered what it was; An enjoyable BSG story, arguably not quite ready for TV. The acting was solid enough and the soundtrack and space battles were even a little even better. I do have some mixed feelings about the general impression it left on me; Although the camera work was sometimes quite similar as 2003 BSG series, it somehow didn't match it's original feel. I think it's the lack of proper CGI, original sets or maybe bad lightening. Sometimes the background seems to be moving in a way which doesn't correspond with the foreground. Sometimes the control sticks in the cockpit looked more like painted computer joysticks.
That doesn't take away that B&C is enjoyable enough to keep watching until the end. If you like BSG, I'm sure you will like this. Just don't expect too much of it and you will be fine.
7/10
The Dead (2010)
"Return of the Romero Zombies"
This is a zombie movie in Africa which contains old school, slow walking zombies. The lead characters are people with families who are just trying to get home or find their loved ones. They are not trying to solve the mystery of the outbreak, which makes it a simple, but very entertaining piece of film.
There is a huge difference in picture quality; Sometimes you are looking at dark images with too much artificial grain, at other times you are seeing beautiful African scenery with some nifty shots. Meanwhile, the undead are never far away. This resulted in the best feature of the whole movie; you never felt safe EVER. The threat of slow zombies always shambling towards the main characters gave me that freaky feeling only Romero delivered. It worked.
This movie doesn't really excel at anything, but it is still very enjoyable. It has some minor continuity flaws (like cleaning a blood smeared face with just a dry cloth) but it doesn't get in the way. It doesn't deliver perfect acting, but it isn't terrible to watch either. It lacks a film score but there's still enough tension without it. Even with these minor flaws, I feel The Dead was a welcome change in the zombie genre and I would recommend it to any zombie fan.