****SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!****
It usually isn’t a good
idea to watch movies that Mrs. Troublemaker is excited about. It’s
okay if it’s just something that she would like to see, but if she
has actually talked about a movie multiple times and is visibly
excited to be watching it the thing is almost guaranteed to be a
turd.
That looks awesome,
right? Kind of like Silent
Hill
crossed with Wolfenstein.
And the setup was so obvious it just seemed like it couldn’t fail.
Of course the Soviet Union would send a film crew out to record the
final days of World War II. And of course they’d find a facility
chock-full of Nazi nightmares.
Now, I’m not saying I
was excited enough to find this in a theater and go see it, but I was
definitely ready to order it OnDemand in the comfort of our own home.
So that’s exactly what we did.
The movie opens following
the aforementioned Soviet soldiers walking through the countryside.
They’re getting used to being filmed and discussing their mission,
which is… something. They’re supposed to be investigating or
looking for Nazis or something. I’ll be honest – I had a little
trouble paying attention because the first twenty minutes or so of
the movie are really boring and the characters aren’t very
interesting. They seem to be sort of trying to establish archetypes,
but everybody just kind of comes off as “Grumpy Solider Dick”.
The only standouts are “Grizzled Veteran Leader” and “Guy Who
Screws Around Too Much”.
Things look like they’re
about to pick up when the troops find a body face-down beside the
trail they’re following. The camera operator sticks around and
turns it over, only to discover that the corpse has some weird shit
on its face – including a Frankenstein’s Monster-style bolt
sticking out of its chin. Then it sort of burps and its eye explodes.
The cameraman flips out a bit, but then just goes on about his
business.
After some more stomping
around in the woods the troops find a church that appears to be
abandoned. After some haphazard investigating, they discover a pile
of burned nuns. This is as disturbing as it is supposed to be,
particularly when it turns out one of the nuns near the top of the
stack is still alive. She’s all burned and suffering, so one of the
soldiers – being merciful – shoves his knife in her neck and ends
it. It’s a little weird that there’s no blood on the blade when
he pulls it out. This is something that happens in a
lot of
movies and I just don’t get it. How can you overlook blood? I have
never personally stabbed anybody, but I have a pretty good idea that
if you stick an item into a human being’s body it is not going to
come back out clean. Not even is it’s an existing orifice.
Also, what the heck is
the timeframe here? We already know that the Soviets are about to
stumble upon a laboratory full of monsters. You don’t set such
things up in a day. So how long was the burned sister laying on top
of that pile? A month? Or did the Nazis and nuns come to some kind of
agreement about housing arrangements? Maybe they shared space until
the Nazis just got fed up with the nuns’ self-righteous “You
really shouldn’t be surgically replacing people’s heads with
machine guns” nonsense and just set them all on fire. I dunno, but
that would have been one crazy mismatched roommates sitcom.
Frankenstein’s Army
is chock full of things like this that are glaring nonsense that were
done for no reason other than they looked cool or sounded like good
ideas when unencumbered by silly things like logic and continuity.
After a little more
creeping around, the soldiers enter the church (or nunnery, I guess)
and wander around until the Dumb One turns on the power. Right around
the same time he does that, some of the fellas have discovered a
nude, gender-neutral body on the floor. It’s covered with scars and
stitches and is just generally freaky-looking and is also connected
to wires descending from the ceiling (see where this is going?).
Being morons, they start prodding it and it stands up and starts sort
of stumbling around. The leader of the morons starts trying to talk
to it, then decides it’s too gross to live and raises his pistol to
deliver two shots to the dome. Sensing its impending demise, the
neuter thing punches Moron Leader in the stomach. Unfortunately for
Moron Leader, Neuter Thing has a drill for a hand.
Everybody goes all crazy
and starts shooting and Neuter Thing jumps on Cameraman.
This is the first
instance of Cameraman being thoroughly attacked by a monster and
suffering no injuries whatsoever, much less dying. It happens again
and again over the course of the movie and is done so that we can get
a really good look at all of the freaky monsters. While I appreciate
that – because the monsters are all pretty awesome – it is one of
the main things that ruins the movie and earns it the “this is a
stupid mess” rating. Now, I have to admit – I might have rested
my eyes a good bit during the final twenty minutes of Frankenstein’s
Army.
There may well have been an explanation for why the Cameraman could
continually be attacked by these monsters with scythes for hands and
airplane propellers for heads and machine guns for penises or
whatever and emerge entirely unscathed. But I kind of doubt it. I
think the explanation was “because we needed him to survive the
movie”.
As the movie goes on the
monsters get crazier and crazier. There’s no point in discussing
the plot any further, because that is
the plot. Once the action moves inside the convent the movie
basically turns into a haunted house walkthrough. It hit me after
just a couple more encounters – the whole thing basically feels
like a Netherworld attraction, except not as exciting because you’re
not there and you don’t give a shit about the people that are. It’s
really just encounter after escalating encounter with these fantastic
surgical experiments, all done in the first person to attempt to
create an element of viewer involvement. Except this fails because
the whole time you’re like, “Why the fuck isn’t Cameraman
getting sliced to ribbons?”
Eventually Cameraman
finds the titular Dr. Frankenstein – the original Frankenstein’s
son – and other stuff happens. It’s all silly pap and doesn’t
matter. The best part of the last fifteen or so minutes is a monster
that is basically a kettle with legs. It has lederhosen on and
follows Dr. Frankenstein everywhere so he has a place to put stuff.
Frankenstein’s Army
is shot competently enough and the actors are fine for what they’re
doing. But the complete lack of effort put into the plotting and
editing make it too stupid to enjoy. If somebody would just put up a
cut that included nothing but the monster scenes I would watch it
over and over again. But with the surrounding nonsense intact it’s
just intolerable.
2
out of 5
I’d
buy toys. I’d love to see costumes at Dragon Con. But if I never
see this movie again it’ll be too soon. It’s all the worse for
the fact that it could
have been great with just one more competent person involved in the
right capacity. Whoever designed and executed the monsters deserves a
long and prosperous career in the industry. Whoever directed, edited,
and produced should just stop now.
-Phantom
I felt the same way about Iron Sky. Loved the trailer, loved the concept, loved the 1st 5 mins of the movie, and then meh for the rest.
ReplyDeleteMe too. Iron Sky was a big disappointment. Serious tonal problems.
Deleteawesome film................................ 4/5
ReplyDeleteTo each their own. It's a spectacle, at least!
Delete