Slaughter Is The Best Medicine (Black Ops)
Regardless of whether or not the film is successful getting it made is no small task and it can be considered quite an achievement. In light of this fact, I want to praise BLACK OPS (WATCH IT HERE) for having tried to put this nice idea into practice however despondent were the odds in bringing it to fruition, if at all. Go big or go home, right? Therefore, I will tip my hat to the dedication presented here and applaud its scope. However, as Child would say, these sorts of remarks should come before one has familiarized oneself with the cinematic event that is the late afternoon Syfy channel offerings.
This might get rough, so do as Arnold requested in JURASSIC PARK and ‘hold on to your butts.’ Beginning with a stealth operation some of our special ops teams order the assassination of a hostage just because that’s what they’re told. Some other folks let the assailants die mere civilians before a clean up is done and some fist bumps are done for a job well done. But apparently, this excessive murder of human beings is a very poor choice (who knew?) and is what leads to that purgatory-like experience with the spiral staircase.
Most times, I am comfortably able to accept such time loop horrors, and TRIANGLE and TIME CRIMES are a must watch for me. But with BLACK OPS (also called The Ascent), it is entirely different from the lot. The genres in this case can be said as horror, action, and sci-fi all at the same time which is quite confusing.
Trying to combine genres is a great way to approach a beaten plot (MATRIX where you have kung-fu and also sci-fi), but at most and final analysis, one should never even try it, because one would be lying, saying they NEED it to be so. This movie has been seen by me twice. However, I still do not know what the movie is targeting.
A well-executed action sequence is one of the more difficult elements to achieve with a low budget though it is not impossible. There is, however, a significant amount of emphasis that is required for it to become realistic and convincing. This thing is a skill set and HOLY SHIT, this movie does not have it. Here the action is so poorly executed that they don’t even color grade the muzzle flashes. I’m not joking: each gunshot comes with this annoying orange asset on top of it.
What should have been an exciting opening quickly degenerates into what seems to be friends dressing up as soldiers, shot outdoors during the day but intended to look quite different. As an enemy’s bullet pierced an enemy’s chest, we were shown some terrible CGI blood effects from games made in the early.
Instead of portraying how brutal and vicious the squad is, this provides a comical action sequence. One that could easily nestle alongside ICE SHARKS. You’d think the effect to be from a film made the night before because they are extremely immature. There is no way in hell this opening does anything and if at all, only lowers your spirits.
The main problem is that there are nine characters in this bloated narrative.
Les misérables, when it’s about a slasher or a monster flick, I would say ‘The more, the merrier.’ But with a new movie synopsis that contains ‘ To survive they must go through all of their previous sins,’ BLACK OPS is supposed to be deep and tear-jerking. The catch, however, is that there are far too many characters in the movie. There’s absolutely no chance for any meaningful resolution or development when you have an ensemble cast in a movie that has a runtime of 90 minutes. Once they all enter the never-ending stairwell, they get slaughtered one by one by the apparition.
This, in itself, could’ve been a psychological type pf movie but the basic premise has been flipped because everyone goes ‘mad’ right away, or chooses to embrace death or even deny everything. Not a single emotional beat is performed and even makes sense, and at the very end, the remaining few are more irritated than anything else. It’s as if the ghost (perhaps a demon?) is just hanging around for no apparent reason. When horror has become a mere irritation for the characters, it’s unrealistic to try to market it.
They do not look like individuals too. They all share some generic army character which has been used up in the eighties and nineties. Yes, yes, we all know how tough they all are and how much they shout: real progress! No one is an outlier when it comes to acting on the film. Our KIA, played by Schnitzler, is commendable however the portrayal of the hurt was too shallow for her character, the closest to the audience we all had.
The actors, no matter what shortcomings they have are of little concern because the screenplay doesn’t put any actor in a good light. Some lines of dialogue could be moderate paraphrases, after all the original game pretty much sets the bar high. And then you have moments of emotionless reaction to traumatizing events, or lack of the most common thing in humanity character development. As if they had come up with an idea and then, after writing a couple of lines, thought if it can be made into a full length movie and had to shoot it, now!
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