Dead Space: Downfall
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Movie Reviews of Dead Space: Downfall
Movie Review: well done...
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a decent animated movie! very Alien like and a little edgy for a cartoon style. the plot is simple but good. good suspense.Movie Review: Title
Summary: 4 Stars
As far as movies go, it's no blockbuster. But it was a good prelude to the game.Movie Review: The guilty pleasures of Duckman, part 2. 64%
Summary: 3 Stars
While I normally like to go into a good amount of depth into my reviews, I'm keeping this one a little short since there really isn't a lot to explain for Dead Space Downfall.
Dead Space Downfall serves as a prequel to the hit video game (and one of my personal favorites), Dead Space. On a remote mining colony called Aegis VII, an alien artifact (simply called the Marker) is extracted and many of the miners involved in the operation believe it's proof that God exists. However, ever since the Marker was extracted, murders and homicides have increased drastically on the colony. The mining ship (aka "planet cracker") USG Ishimura comes in to break off the section of the planet containing the Marker and the artifact itself is brought on the Ishimura. One of the miners down on the colony sees his wife or girlfriend (don't know exactly the relationship) kill herself with a laser-tipped pickax and the miner puts her body on a small transport shuttle, heading back to the Ishimura. However, he doesn't know that a Necromorph alien snuck on the shuttle and infested the dead woman's body, turning her into a flesh-eating monstrosity, killing the miner and crashing the shuttle in the Ishimura's hangar bay; from that moment on, all hell breaks loose on the ship. Me and my friends like to poke fun at this scene by saying this:
"Congratulations!! You just created the plot for an entire video game!!"
I'd like to get the bad stuff out of the way first. While the plot is somewhat interesting (particularly the struggle between the Unitologists and the "nonbelievers") and sets up the story pretty nicely for the Dead Space video game, these events are predictable if you've played the game. Character development is completely absent in this cinematic bloodbath and there's not much depth to them at all, either. The characters pretty much remain the same throughout the feature and exist solely for the plot.
Since an interesting plot and intriguing, dymanic characters are what make a film great, you may be asking "Duckman, what's the saving grace of Dead Space Downfall?" What makes DSD worth watching on occasion is its indulgence in completely mindless yet enjoyable violence. There's more violence in DSD than you can shake a Plasma Cutter at, and when taken by itself, it's pretty fun to watch. The Necromorphs are ripping the Ishimura's crew members to pieces and head of security, Alyssa Vincent, has to lead her subordinates into this hell and do what they can to save the ship. Vincent and her crew initially combat the Necromorphs with guns, but when an engineer named Irons comes into the picture with some sort of energy saw, that's when the action gets better. I can watch the crew members decapitate the Necromorphs with those tools all day since nothing says "awesome" more than that. While this method of combat sure is awesome, I was kinda disappointed that they limited themselves to using those tools when they could have used such great tools for the job like the Force Gun, Line Cutter, and Blowtorch. Though I must say, I laughed pretty hard when that fat naked guy in the shower room got ripped into pieces by one of the aliens.
While most movies based off video games have little or nothing in common with the game they're based off of (particularly that cinematic disaster known as Super Mario Bros.), I do have to commend Dead Space Downfall for following the Ishimura's design, character designs, and Necromorph designs down to a T. The Necromorph designs are excellent for their originality and repulsion factor since they're horribly distorted human cadavers with spikes, tentacles, and razor-sharp teeth galore. The baby corpses with tentacles have to be my favorite Necromorph designs since they're so unexpected and hideous.
The voice acting is pretty decent, bordering on average at times. The best voice acting came from none other than Jim Cummings (known for his voices for Winnie the Pooh, Darkwing Duck, and Dr. Robotnik in SatAM Sonic) as the horribly deranged Unitologist and captain of the Ishimura, Captain Mathias. Since Cummings has a penchant for voicing deranged tyrant-like characters, he was perfect for that role since Mathias doesn't care about the safety of his crew, he just wants to bring the Marker back to the Church of Unitology.
The animation and artwork is pretty decent, though nothing really special. Pretty standard 2D animation fused with standard 3D animation.
When all is said and done, Dead Space Downfall is a mindless gore-infested popcorn flick that's fun to watch on occasion. While people looking for nothing but animated gore may like this, I would recommend this only to fans of the Dead Space video game since fans of that game would hold more appreciation for Dead Space Downfall than viewers who haven't played the game.
Movie Review: Entertaining, if middling, action film; 3.5 stars
Summary: 3 Stars
Leave it to Electronic Arts to find ways of making money. Recently, they've been doing grand things with new IPs, what with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space. But, even then, they're constantly thinking of the bottom dollar. Cross platform has been a buzz term recently, as a way of maximizing the profits of their newly crafted IPs. Which brings me to Dead Space. Dead Space is already, technically, a trilogy. Sure you have the game, but there's also a comic book detailing what happened on the mining colony where a mysterious artifact was found. Then there's Downfall, this animated movie that bridges the gap between the two stories.
Downfall begins with the discovery of The Marker, an artifact that the religious movement in Dead Space called Unitology, and its removal and transportation to the Ishimura. Very quickly things start to spiral out of control and, without getting into the details, the necromorphs that inhabited and destroyed the colony inadvertently end up on the Ishimura. From this moment on, it's up to head of security Alissa Vincent and her ragtag team of stereotypes to figure out what the hell is going on and...well, I guess it's not a spoiler to say they don't stop it since if they did, we wouldn't have Dead Space, the game.
Honestly, Downfall is about 90% action, 5% filler and 5% story which isn't a bad thing. It's actually a pretty entertaining romp, albeit a generic one that, like the game, steals a lot from other better films. One big problem I had, though, was that I was expecting a bit more connectivity between this and the game. I purposefully waited to watch the film for fear that it would ruin something from the game. Truthfully, though, there's not really much connection. The only link is that of Doctor Kyne and he, in fact, shares a scene in both the game and the movie. Unfortunately, it isn't the exact same scene, which completely ruins the continuity.
What I did enjoy is that, taken with both the game and the comic, it helps present a fuller picture of the events in the game. It's also pretty entertaining with some very nice animation and plenty of gore. People in Downfall are ripped to shreds, impaled, gored, disemboweled in ways I've never really seen on a film. So for those looking for an action-packed animated movie, Downfall is a good pick. Just don't expect too much.
Movie Review: Expect A Prequel For This Pequel
Summary: 3 Stars
This animated, feature-length prequel created to intro Electronic Arts third-person horror title Dead Space is an interesting and relatively entertaining release. Obviously, Downfall is fantastic promo for the game and no doubt has the attention of eager gamers but I think it's fair to say that viewers uninterested in gaming are going to want to know whether this film delivers thrills, chills and blood spills without requiring a PS3 or Xbox 360. Never fear, it does indeed deliver and no love for consoles are needed.
Dead Space: Downfall isn't scary, it's rare to see animation that is, but it does offer up an incredible amount of impressive gore, strong language and a bleak, nihilistic story that offers not one single sliver of a glimmer of hope. The voice acting was solid and the animation was decent (nothing cutting edge); it's dark, brutal and occasionally exciting. Whether you're a gamer or not, Downfall is worth checking out despite imperfections.
I think, concerning imperfections, my biggest problem with the film was how very little background information we're given on social classes, religion, planet mining and the very nature of the relic. Perhaps EA has plans to fill in those blanks with the video game or a comic series, who knows, all I know is a little more depth could have really helped me get my bearings. The film was interesting but just dropping viewers into the middle of a complex concept without giving up some exposition goodies created more questions than answers.
I enjoyed Dead Space: Downfall and would definitely recommend it to gamers and horror fans with a taste for animated carnage. It offered up tons of possibilities but very little specifics which left me feeling a bit dissatisfied. It's all entertaining enough but I don't plan to purchase the game or anything so, unfortunately, my experience with the concept will end with this film.