Ninjas Vs Monsters (2012)
When picking DVDs on Lovefilm I often get offered trashy horror movies, many of which have titles sneakily close to more mainstream films but also many which have intriguingly outrageous titles.
Occasionally a title will convince me to look up its rating on the typical score aggregate websites. One such film was "Ninjas Vs Vampires". There were two reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. One didn't like it, but the other praised it as a really fun low budget movie.
When it arrived, the film turned out to be essentially a Buffy the Vampire Slayer rip-off. And that's fine; these films are very clear about their influences and makes many pop culture references towards Buffy and other movies and shows. The acting wasn't always brilliant, but there were some pretty neat low budget action sequences. Also a central performance from Daniel Ross is a particular stand out (in all three films actually). As promised, it was fun.
When the previous film in the series was released on Lovefilm (yes, releasing those back to front was confusing), someone had made the bizarre decision to rename the film "Zombie Contagion". This was particularly dodgy since the zombies are magical zombies who follow one master zombie's commands, not a viral outbreak. The first film in the series had less impressive fight choreography, but better jokes so I actually preferred it.
So, after an extremely long wait, we finally have the final part in the trilogy. Though the film leaps straight into the action I was surprised by how confused I was about the details of the earlier movies, since it turned out that continuity matters. The action is pretty cool though some characters seem very quick to become friends after trying to kill each other. Some melodrama in the first half of the movie is a little poorly judged and poorly paced.
Yet strangely when the movie turns into a kind of Mortal Kombat style tournament half way through, it gets a second wind. A busty axe-wielding warrior who appears at this stage and looked a bit out of place in the trailer turned out to be my favourite character in the film. The actress (Alexia Poe) brings a great comic performance.
Ninjas vs Monsters still has the same budget limitations, pacing problems and inconsistent humour of prior films in the series, but it still has the same wonderful sense of fun. What can I say? If you liked the first two films I'd be surprised if you were disappointed by this finale. Not a step up in quality or a step down. Just the same old loveable silliness.
B-