Look at me while I’m bagging your film!
Remember when you were at school and the teacher reminded you that you had an assignment or project due the next day, and that you had been aware of it for three months. And you hadn’t even started yet…
So rather than take the F you scrawled together some crap over night with some hastily arranged details and rambling barely coherent information that only partially touched upon what was required. Now imagine you sheepishly handed it in. And got an A.
That my friends is Versus. I have seen this reviewed glowingly yet for the life of me cannot see why. It has received enough plaudits that one day I went out and bought it because I couldn’t find it in any video shop, and boy do I regret that $15 now.
Loosely put Versus is about a Japanese Forest that has the power of resurrection due to it being one of the gates to something or other, and every few hundred years a battle is fought between Japanese guys over who will rule the next while. That’s at least what I jotted down before I gave up. The plot merely exists to have a bunch of sword fights, zombies and various costumes on screen in what amounts to little more than a student film.
Depending on who they are attacking the zombies are either superhuman or consist of exploding jelly, they either stand there waiting to be shot or flip all over the place out of harm’s way. Key characters fight, die, come back to fight and die again. Simply more bodies, more fodder for the rest. After the first 10 minutes it’s all the same, and let me tell you the first 10 minutes are bewildering and lousy.
There’s lots of blood, lots of bullets and loads of bad acting. But this is the one point where Versus is a cut above. There is one actor in this film who simply must be seen to fully understand the level of his crapulence. There is not one moment where he is not at 100% ham, either poking his tongue out, jumping around like a demented animal or eye-bulging a reaction to the most mild dialogue.
I can think of not one other thing that elevates this film to something worthy of being spoken about, or poor enough to raise a chuckle.
I watched this. It sucks. Let’s move on.
This is just crap. On a related note, anyone who wants a free DVD of Versus only played once just let me know.
Final Rating – 4 / 10. Two hours of Banana Splits production values and improv-night dialogue, all there so that some Japanese guys can have sword fights and shoot fake zombies while playing dress-ups.
