A space crew come into contact with an ancient artifact. After bringing it aboard their ship, chaos immediately begins with the crew members being viciously slaughtered by an alien race that they released. Chief Alissa Vincent is sent in with her team to learn what exactly they're up against.-summary
This is one that really surprised me. Anyone who's familiar with my history concerning video games to film knows that I have a deep disdain for them. Now to make things clear, it's not at all because most of them fail to achieve the same greatness as the game, or rarely follows the plot lines either. I hate them because they're plain lousy in quality. However, to prove that I can actually enjoy one of these types of movies. All one has to do is take a look at this review on Dead Space: Downfall. Which happens to be a video game to animation I had absolutely no knowledge about.
The movie is said to be the prequel to the video game Dead Space by Electronic Arts, and after witnessing the gory, and sick brutality of this sci-fi action killer. I must admit that the movie had me sold, and right now, Dead Space is a part of my PS3 collection and it will be there forever.
Even though Dead Space: Downfall begins kind of slow. The movie does have pretty good pacing with some very good build up. I think the direction provided a nice warm up, by slowly introducing the threat before all hell broke loose. But when the action finally begins, the viewer will be treated to all the mayhem they were hoping for.
The battle with the aliens can be very violent. The viewer is treated to impalement's and different forms of bodily destruction, and the deaths can be very creative, yet, at the same time incredibly disturbing. This also goes for many dead bodies of people who were killed off screen, and they're destroyed corpses are littered through out the ship. The aliens are no pushovers whatsoever, and they have the physical abilities as well as durability to get down and dirty. In addition, they possess a dangerous secret which heavily tips the battle in their favor.
The animation is decent at best when displaying the visceral gore. It's downright scary what this flick could have really looked like with higher production values. Unfortunately at times, it doesn't seem much different from regular Saturday morning cartoons. The artwork at times is mediocre as well. However, the freakish character designs for the creatures seem to have been more of the focus. Together with their violent antics, they work really well in establishing the horror edge in the movie. On the other hand, the soundtrack didn't really enhance the horror like atmosphere the way I hoped. Still, I find it suitable for the most part I guess. The voice acting was decent as well, and come into this expecting lots of foul language, which can shift between very funny to very annoying.
Although the movie has its entertaining moments. It's nothing more than an all out battle of Man vs. Monsters. There is nothing in the way of character development which I can somewhat forgive, but what I can't forgive is the severe lack in heavy duty armaments. Since this is based on a video game. I think the writers could have added at least half of the games weaponry. I would have definitely loved to see more. The addition of more weapons could have taken the violence to the next level, to include give a casual video gamer even more of a reason to play the game.
Overall, Dead Space: Downfall is no where near a masterpiece. However, it's far better than practically every video game to film I have ever seen. It's straightforward and knows exactly what it wants to be. I enjoy it a little more every time I watch it. I mainly recommend this to the video gamers and gore crowd. The movie has a 74 minute run time.
Pros:
-Very violent with some good gore
Cons:
-Characters are mere plot devices
-Mediocre animation and artwork
