2047: A Sight for Death, or Death Squad as it's also known ran into trouble straight away with me. The first very early problem with this film was Danny Glover's narration. Now I like Danny Glover as an actor and thought he was fantastic in the Lethal Weapon films, but the first 5 minutes consist of him mumbling random and incoherent dialogue. Worse still, most of his narration seems to actually be used to act as a framework for the story. I actually listened to his narration at the start twice and still didn't understand all of it. This might be one of the reasons why I couldn't get involved with the film because I felt like I never really knew what was going on??
Had this been the only issue then I probably would still recommend it, but the truth is that this film is so mind-numbingly boring. Once Ryan arrives, we see him sulking around and then we witness him playing a rather dull and tedious game of cat and mouse with the mercenaries. It just seemed to lack any sort of spark or imagination and was just tiresome and predictable.
The writers clearly weren't interested in providing the audience with any sort of semblance of an intelligent screenplay, which in itself isn't a bad thing if they would have at least made the film entertaining. The fact that the film is both boring and uninteresting means that they've actually created a film that isn't for 'anyone' rather than one that isn't for 'everyone'.
Many of the performances reflect the overall quality of the film with Baldwin & Hannah being the worst offenders. The former is a large piece of wood, devoid of charm or charisma who certainly isn't the kind of character you'd care for or root for. The latter is just plain bad and unconvincing. Hauer fares better, but that's not saying much. Madsen was ridiculous and terrible, but at least he looked like was having fun here and this does sort of translate on-screen, but this alone is not strong enough to make it worth watching.
Death Squad is an insufferable mess that lacks intelligence and is just downright boring. Even it's pathetic IMDb score of 2.5 is far too generous. It's a film that should be erased from existence.
Had this been the only issue then I probably would still recommend it, but the truth is that this film is so mind-numbingly boring. Once Ryan arrives, we see him sulking around and then we witness him playing a rather dull and tedious game of cat and mouse with the mercenaries. It just seemed to lack any sort of spark or imagination and was just tiresome and predictable.
The writers clearly weren't interested in providing the audience with any sort of semblance of an intelligent screenplay, which in itself isn't a bad thing if they would have at least made the film entertaining. The fact that the film is both boring and uninteresting means that they've actually created a film that isn't for 'anyone' rather than one that isn't for 'everyone'.
Many of the performances reflect the overall quality of the film with Baldwin & Hannah being the worst offenders. The former is a large piece of wood, devoid of charm or charisma who certainly isn't the kind of character you'd care for or root for. The latter is just plain bad and unconvincing. Hauer fares better, but that's not saying much. Madsen was ridiculous and terrible, but at least he looked like was having fun here and this does sort of translate on-screen, but this alone is not strong enough to make it worth watching.
Death Squad is an insufferable mess that lacks intelligence and is just downright boring. Even it's pathetic IMDb score of 2.5 is far too generous. It's a film that should be erased from existence.