Friday, August 14, 2009

Full Eclipse Review

Full Eclipse

Today we have a special movie review. While I was under the impression that this film was a blaxploitation film, but turns out it wasn't such. This 1993 film is not exactly the first thing you hear about in the cannon of Mario Van Peebles. However, it's an interesting movie that takes a look at a genre of film that is dominated by bigger budgets, that genre of course is werewolves. The movie I'm going to try and review for you guys today is the 1993 film Full Eclipse.

Full Eclipse is a movie about a group of werewolves who have infiltrated the local police infrastructure, becoming an elite unit of vigilante crime fighters. When our main character resists joining the elite group, he's dragged into it, only to want to fight out tooth and nail.

The movie starts with two detectives responding to a call in a night club. Together they unload shot after shot and one of them nearly dies. As the movie progresses we see a sinister plot unfold and someone gives a serum to the fallen. We learn that the serum wasn't poison, at least not in the traditional sense, it's werewolf serum and we get into the action portion of this film. The former slain victim is now super human and we see a poorly choreographed chase scene to illustrate the fact.

As the movie progresses our main hero is wrangled into an elite group of werewolf warriors, but he doesn't want in. After finding out more about these hero's things go awry and he fights them, and that only progresses after about 90 minutes of set up, creating a boring film.

Seriously, this movie took a major turn after the first twenty minutes. The first twenty minutes of this film has a lot of action, and at times you really think you're watching a Batman film or something because this thing is tedious in its initial set up and action packed for apparently no reason. As the movie progresses though, it starts to slow down, then really slows down, eventually it slows down to a crawl and you start to compare this film to Scifi original tv films. I started to give up on the film, and then the last ten or so minutes really sewed it up.

At the full eclipse of the moon the main werewolf transforms into a monster. The transformation is instant, and you can completely tell that there is a man inside a werewolf suit. The characters fight it out for a good four or five minutes, and it's interesting to see how this turns out.

The computer graphics are terrible. The story is full of plot holes and really terrible acting. The make up and effects on the werewolves themselves are mediocre. The wolves don't even have legitimate claws, they come out of their fists like Wolverine! The film is terrible, it's not scary and really insults your intelligence.

However, that's the type of film that I enjoy sometimes. Sure Full Eclipse isn't going to win any major awards soon, but I'd watch this film over any recent Nicolas Cage film. I enjoyed this film on a comedic level, even though it's suppose to be a serious film. This film has a scary premise, consider it. Think about the idea that the Police were run by werewolves, outlandish, but if it were possible it'd be scary. This whole movie could be a metaphor for drugs. If you take drugs you will become an animal, and won't be able to control yourself. You know what, it's more of a metaphor for cult activity. Once you get in, you can't get out without blood being spilled.

Nevermind, this movie doesn't deserve much more review. Full Eclipse is laughable, but it's not worse than Vegas Vampires. In fact, you want a good time? Watch Full Eclipse and Vegas Vampires back to back, and enjoy the show. It doesn't add or take away much from the werewolf lore or stories from the past, even though it's definitely a sore spot for horror movie fans that saw this one.



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1 comment:

  1. Sounds fun. BTW, I'm here often. I just don't post cause it's such a challenge with javascript. -C

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