Dumb-Assedness Knows No Bounds

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."

Tommy Lee Jones as Agent Kay, from Men in Black




I'll admit, I haven't been the smartest person in the world my entire life. I've made my fair share of mistakes, either intentionally or accidentally, and suffered the consequences accordingly. I've been dumb sometimes, and who hasn't?

More times than not, though, I've noticed something very disturbing about what we call the human race...a trend which reflects that we are on the whole dumber than one can possibly hope to quantify, even if a genius had the help of a supercomputer the size of Texas. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to condemn everyone else from some lofty perch. Like I said, I've been dumb, too. But I've been trying to be better.

And like that quote from Tommy Lee Jones above, it isn't like intelligent, thoughtful folk with common sense are few and far-between. But I *DO* know that stupid people run in packs. And they like to follow stupid, foolish, a-facepalm-ain't-enough trends.

Here's a trend for you I just heard about today. In Wikipedia, it's called the 'Fainting Game'. When I heard about it in my area on a local news radio station, they called it 'the Choking Game'.
Just when you think you heard everything, huh?

It's something more and more kids (mostly pre-teens) are doing to get a new kind of high. How? If this is the first time you've heard of this, please rest assured I'M NOT MAKING THE FOLLOWING UP, may I get hit by lightning. It's called the 'Fainting/Choking Game' exactly because kids are deliberately choking themselves or forcing themselves to hyperventilate to go dizzy and experience the rush that comes with it.

What the hell?

I can't add anything to that (I'm sure you're thinking of a lot of things for yourself after reading that) but this. Doctors are warning parents that besides risking death (no shit?), a kid can also go brain-damaged as a result of the 'Choking Game'. I'm sorry, I thought anybody who'd do that was ALREADY brain-damaged...and maybe if they want to get choked so bad, someone else can do the job for them and *all the way to getting dead* to spare the more intelligent of us their dumb-assedness...

Favorites of a Video Game Geek #3: DEAD ISLAND

This isn't something I do every time I come across a video game that becomes a favorite. The primary reason for that is there's a lot of games I love, and if I were to list and describe why I enjoy each and every one, I'd have to call this blog something video game-centered. (Yeah, I've got a lot of favorites!) Without a doubt, those at the very top of my favorites list will be mentioned. This installment is also different because it's my review of a new game, something I haven't exactly done before, and rest assured it's the opinion of someone who played the game! Therefore, it's for those who might have an interest in the topic at hand I bring you my review of the game "Dead Island".

Question: Why do people go to a tropic resort island? Answer: To get away from it all...that is to say, to get away from all the crap and troubles of the world and escape to an oasis of beauty and simplicity. That seems to be the God-created purpose of places like the island of Banoi, a paradise island where one can escape from any and every care and immerse into tropical beauty and sun worship, a place where everything's permissible and what's forbidden is left to the individual tourist and how much money they can spend. Unfortunately, in this place meant to be paradise, a world-ending virus has taken root. Both tourists and natives of the island are falling ill...only to rise back up with killer appetites and a bloodlust to hunt for the scent of those not yet infected. Virtually overnight, Banoi is turned from Heaven to a Hell on Earth, and only a select few immune to the virus have a chance to escape. The tropical paradise of Banoi has transformed into...DEAD ISLAND!

Okay, let me get this out of the way. Many of my favorite games involve zombies, like the "Resident Evil", "Dead Rising", and "Left 4 Dead" games, among others. So I was already semi-biased to get this game, which combines the island mystery of "Lost" with the blood-spattered horror of "Dawn of the Dead". Thankfully, my personal tastes gravitated me toward a helluva game...it has its flaws, granted, but what's great about "Dead Island" makes me forgive those flaws. Mostly!

The player can choose one of four characters immune from infection to get through the story-based missions and fetch-quests. For my part, I chose the lovely yet formidable Xian Mei (voiced by Kim Mai Guest, who also provided the voice of Mei Ling from my favorite video game ever, "Metal Gear Solid"), who worked as a resort receptionist before the dead came to town. At any time, the player can choose to fight through zombies solo or get online to play through the campaign with others as a group of four. Considering the difficulty of some enemies (more on that later), I'd advise getting online help whenever possible to ease the frustration!

"Dead Island" is played in the first-person, but unlike most games which involve shooting from that perspective, the focus is on melee combat with blunt or bladed weapons. The analog controls, thankfully, are ideal for such gameplay and respond very well. If you have trouble, just practice, practice, practice! This dynamic is blended with open world gameplay in the vein of "Grand Theft Auto"...RPG elements are involved, as well, meaning the more enemies you kill and more missions you complete, the more experience you get to rise in zombie-kicking prowess! Each character has individual talents you'd be wise to improve...in Xian Mei's case, she gets better and better with edged weapons from knives to swords. It'll take a while to get there, but slicing into enemies with a katana is both bloody and damned awesome! (Be at ease, "L4D" lovers, there's guns to be found on this island, too...but be warned at the same time that ammunition is scarce!) However, while melee weapons don't run out of ammo, they do lose durability the more the player uses them, and they'll show it visibly. Work benches can be found in different parts of the island to fix and upgrade them to slow the wear and tear on them, thankfully.

The open world dynamics are ideal complement to the graphics, which are gorgeous...the amazing look of the game's Banoi surroundings trumps even the island setting of another favorite of mine, "Far Cry Instincts". You'll have all different kinds of places to go, from the resort-dominated beaches to a ruined slum to the thick jungle interior and more. But where there's beauty, never forget, things can turn downright beastly as decaying, bloody zombies can lurk around the proverbial next corner!

One more thing about the missions in "Dead Island". You're always given the choice to take a mission or not, which is a good thing. (Although you won't get through the story and maybe off the island if you don't accept the main plot-driven missions!) You have the freedom to do what you want when you want, without fail...you can even take it at any pace you want. Be warned, though, that some missions will annoy you. They're the epitomy of fetch-quests, like when a simpering nobody wants you to go and get something they can get themselves if only they'd get the courage up to risk it. They are...well, for want of a better word, pussies. The hardier survivors should just tie them up and leave them on the beach to get piled on by zombies!

Whatever pace you wish to take through "Dead Island", though, be warned it's a long game...it took me a while to get through it, but I'll admit I only refused a few of the non-story missions. (Of which there were many!) One thing that may make it long for you, depending on your frustration level, are some enemy undead you'll run into. Now you'll learn that there are varying levels of difficulty for the missions you'll take, from easy to very hard. The difficulty of the game between missions can shift uncomfortably, too, and usually not in the player's favor! One of the worst examples comes from one of the many types of undead you have to fight, and I don't even mean a 'sub-boss' type, like the Ram! Infecteds are the fastest and most ferocious enemy you'll run into, and at times you'll run into more than one and...trust me, you'll have to be quick to kick them away at the right moment or run for a more elevated place to get a breather unless you want something bad to happen! The game might glitch on you depending on if you die at a checkpoint during some missions, too...your next objective might not show up! It's not bad enough to restart the game, just get some literal distance from the next objective that needs to appear before going any further. That among other glitches, like the few and far-between instances of undead appearing spontaneously to attack you, the gamer needs to be enlightened of!

In spite of those faults, though, "Dead Island" is a great game, both in terms of Survival Horror and open world freedom. If you're willing to get into the dynamic that distinguishes it, melee combat, then you'll undoubtedly enjoy it. Just remember that even in the most beautiful of settings, nothing is perfect...the undead enemies will remind you of that if you don't watch out!

Where were you ten years ago?

That morning on September the Eleventh, 2001, I was on my way home from work as a security guard on the graveyard shift. (Which I disdained, and still do to this day.) I turned on the radio in my Chrysler as an afterthought about five minutes away from my destination. Up to then I liked the quiet of the drive before, outside of the occasional honk and the engine noises of fellow traffic. It was less than ten minutes before 8, Central Time.




I had the station tuned to KMOX, a St. Louis news station on the AM band. A couple of news commentators were talking, and in spite of their deliberately neutral tones, something serious had happened. All I could get inintially because I tuned in late was a building was on fire. The commentators were focused on how many people were inside the building, and the response time of fire department crews. I didn't get any sense of where it was yet...at first I thought it was something going on locally. But there was a weight to what was going on that suddenly put dread in my heart.




It felt a lot longer than five minutes before I got home, and I still didn't know where this was happening or how. At this time, home was on the second story of the same building where my parents had their bakery on the first floor. My brother worked for them (and so did I part of the time outside of my job). I went into the bakery to my family and asked where the fire was. That may sound funny, but it came out that way.




My family had heard a lot more...they had the radio in the bakery's work room tuned to KMOX too, and at the top of the hour I heard the official word. A plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. That didn't sound real to me. I've been a lifelong geek, and my first thought was that sounded like something out of a bad action movie. But when word came in soon enough over the radio that a second plane had hit the other tower, I ran upstairs to turn on the TV.




I felt numb inside at first. I still couldn't believe it was happening...the fact that two planes flew into the WTC towers and what that implied hadn't hit me yet, either. I turned on the TV and switched between CNN and Fox News as I watched the terrible sight of the twin towers burning. How this could have been still wasn't the first question on any of the talking heads' minds, it seemed. They were focused on the event itself, how many people were in the towers, what police and fire units were doing to save any innocents in trouble.




I could only sit there in front of the TV with numbness as one tower fell. Then, what felt like a lifetime later, the other collapsed. One of the correspondents, I forget who he was or if he worked for Fox or CNN, said very simply then, "There are no words." Still numb but with a growing sorrow and anger within me, I tried to find the words to tell my family what I saw. And I only began to realize that was just the beginning.




Where was I on 9-11?




I was home.

Conan, Now and Then.

I haven't seen the new "Conan the Barbarian" in theatres yet...I'll wait until it hits DVD, and then I'll just give it a rent. There are many reasons for this. First, naturally, it's another remake, in fact it's a remake of the film from 1982 I know and love too well that first put the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the map. (That being said, this is NOT a blog to compare the old and new films. I might do that when or if I see the Conan of 2011.) Second, why a remake? Why not a new story that doesn't have to cover the bases of his origins? Conan's not the most complex guy in the world, he's a barbarian...he's an honorable guy, but if you piss him off, you're dead. Or he'll punch out your camel. That's as basic a characterization as can be summed up for him! Third, I'm not very impressed with Jason Momoa in the title part. He's a big guy and he looks like he can do 'barbaric' well, but he looks more like the kind of guy Conan fights! He just doesn't have that much 'oomph', you know? I'm more interested by the fact Marcus Nispel is director...he made the excellent and similarly medieval "Pathfinder", with Karl Urban and Moon Bloodgood in 2007.

This blog, then, is for the purposes of my listing what I believe are The Top Ten Best Things about the original "Conan the Barbarian"!

1) The man himself, Ah-nold. He'd done films before "Conan", of course, but never was there a role that seemed tailor-made for the man. Still getting a grip on English, the script wisely kept Schwarzenegger's dialogue spare and proved the old saying true that actions speak louder than words. In that respect, brother, his actions and his pure screen presence spoke volumes. With every slash and flex of his friggin huge muscles combined with his naturally stoic expression, one can be forgiven for thinking Arnold was brought forward a few thousand years from those less civilized times by some form of time travel! But more important than his physical prowess and that he was so damned RIGHT to play Conan, the future Governator already held that growing, indefinable charm and charisma that would make him known and loved by moviegoers across America.

2) Director and co-writer John Milius. Who else could direct a film called "Conan the Barbarian", honestly? As conservative a filmmaker as you can imagine (he'd later make "Red Dawn", which while excellent played on Cold War paranoia), it seemed destiny that he'd helm a film where men ruled with swords and any pretense of political correctness was literally nonexistent. His most recent effort was writing the video game "Homefront", which like "Red Dawn" involves a Communist country's invasion of the United States. Hey, everything old can be new again!

3) Co-writer Oliver Stone. He was still relatively new in Hollywood at the time, but he as much as Milius gave the film a gravitas it wouldn't have had with anyone else writing the screenplay. The fact Stone and Milius were political opposites (see Stone's films like his antiwar opus "Platoon" and "JFK" in the years afterward) was alone of interest...imagine being a fly on the wall seeing those two get along during a script session!

4) Basil Poledouris, music composer and conductor for "Conan". I doubt Conan would have been what it was without Basil's amazing, pulse-pounding score.

5) The production design, especially the sets. Holy shit, if you want to see a movie where you felt like you've been transported to another time, this is it! These days, if you want great looking surroundings in a movie, they either have to be found (usually in Prague, of all places!) or made by computers to be laid on a green screen behind the actors later. Back in "Conan's" day of 1982, as Jonny Lieberman of Ruthless Reviews wrote, they built sets from the ground up, and you could feel their very real presence.

6) James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom. Only two years after giving Darth Vader his immortal voice for the second time in "The Empire Strikes Back", the incomparable James Earl Jones was seen AND heard as another villain from the Dark Side! Doom is the one who fucks Conan's life up royal when he was still a kid, leading a raid and killing everyone in the future barbarian's village...his dogs rip apart Conan's dad, and he even mesmerizes and cuts off his mom's head as the kid's holding her hand! When Schwarzenegger's Conan finally confronts Jones' Doom for the first time as an adult, when the latter is taking over the world as a cult leader, the archvillain can only explain that he was in a killing and pillaging phase when he destroyed Conan's people. There was no REASON for his mass murder, he just felt like doing it! Hey, these were barbaric times, after all. Doom's also a sorcerer, which explains how he can control people to do his bidding...but he could also turn into a giant snake, and in one brutal moment kills someone close to Conan by using a bow to snake to kill them. Yes, I said a bow and snake. You have to see it to believe it!

7) Sandahl Bergman as Valeria. To be plain, she was hot as fuckin Hell. In spite of her fiercely independent nature as a professional thief, to not be chained down by anything or anyone, she can't help but devote herself to Conan and melt into his big arms. Refer again to Milius and Stone co-writing the movie to explain that.

8) Cassandra Gava as the Witch. Like Valeria, she makes guys stand at attention (you know what I mean), even when she's got clothes on! Her purpose in the plot is to point Conan in the right direction to achieve his long-yearned desire to avenge his parents. But a price has to be paid for her divinations, which means they get it on in her hut. The Witch is one sexually hungry chick, but when her nails turn to talons and she grows fangs, latching onto Conan, their romp in bed truly becomes something that has to be seen rather than described!

9) The pure, sword-swinging violence. One thing above all others has to be emphasized about "Conan". The title character is a barbarian. He's not very civilized or even polite. He may have his own moral code, but if you get on his bad side, your head will end up flying off your shoulders! And outside of Valeria, Subotai and the bitchy Wizard, he keeps running into characters who are even LESS civilized and polite! Even with that in mind, it still surprises me at times how bloody this film gets...and I mean surprising in a good way! The sword fighting is fast and has a truly distinctive style that will please most anyone into this brand of action. (I'd even say this film still measures up well to more recent films like "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "300"!) Okay, bows and arrows were used more than once, too, but they don't count!

10) What is best in life? The answer to that question, from the man himself...

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!" -- Conan

Damned right! :D By the by, another 'swords and sorcery' favorite of mine is "Red Sonja" from 1985, which reunited Ah-nold and Sandahl Bergman, but not quite in the way many fans of their pairing in "Conan" expected! Model Brigitte Nielsen was chosen to play the part of Sonja, another good yet barbaric character on a quest for revenge. While it wasn't as good as "Conan", "Red Sonja" is still a guilty pleasure people need to see at least once!

ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #9: "ZOMBIELAND"!

"ZOMBIELAND" (2009)

TAGLINE: "Nut up or shut up."

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

Uninfected living hit the road to look for America, but only find zombies...they have fun, anyway!


A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE CAN BE FUN? REALLY?

You betcha! Films with both comedy and horror are few and far between, especially ones done well...flicks like the monster movie "Tremors" with Kevin Bacon and "Shaun of the Dead" are fewer than you think. "Zombieland" also straddles that broad line between the funny and the bloody, and does so with an energy and sense of fun you have to experience to really appreciate. We're introduced to this parallel universe gone haywire by Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a loner and uber-geek who survived the onset of the zombie apocalypse because he didn't have any friends, and sure didn't go looking for them. His life has been defined by his fears, and so is his survival in a world all but dead. Think a very young Woody Allen, but much less neurotic.

It's a long, strange trip across the United States of Zombieland for Columbus as he hooks up with fellow survivor Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gun-happy redneck with his own issues, the most important being his obsession with Twinkies. They have a love-hate relationship with each other *and* with Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), a pretty pair of grifters who rob our guys twice! Can they all just get along, or will their final destination be final in a terminal way?



SO IS IT GOOD?


If you love movies with zombies and haven't seen "Zombieland", rectify that now! This film delivers not just as a 'zomedy' in the same twisted vein as "The Return of the Living Dead" and "Shaun of the Dead", it sort of brings the subgenre of undead horror to its logical conclusion, by finding *the bright side* to the zombie apocalypse. Think about it. In a living, civilized world, there's still stuff like rules and laws. But if the world's come to an end, you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything you want, with the one 'however' being most of the time you'll have to be on the lookout for snarling zombies!

The fun in "Zombieland" comes from watching the characters use that sense of freedom in spite of their personal baggage. It's Columbus and Tallahassee we find out the most about...the nerdy Columbus made a list of survival rules defined by his fears, while the go-getting Tallahassee is an ass-kicker in equal magnitude to the personal tragedy he won't talk about but clearly wants to forget. Wichita and Little Rock, while highly mercenary at first, warm to the guys as we discover what they most fear to lose as they focus on reaching an amusement park in California. At one point, all four characters enjoy some catharsis when they find a mostly-intact trading post and then wreck everything inside. (Honestly, I'd want to shoot zombies to improve my mood if I was in their shoes!) And I'm not about to spoil what happens after they reach a certain estate in Beverly Hills...!



OKAY, BUT WAS THERE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?


There's plenty of gory stuff in the first five minutes of the film alone! At the start we're given a look at how things in the USA broke down after the zombie infection hit, and introduced to the first of Columbus' rules for surviving zombies. Let's just say there's good reasons for his living by those rules! By and large, most of the violence is living against Infected...you know, high caliber bullets and blunt force trauma, among other more creative ways. Most of the zombie kills are splatstick, played for laughs, like an instance involving a falling piano! "Zombieland" also ranks up there with the "Dawn of the Dead" remake in sheer volume of undead getting dispatched, especially when the movie reaches its amusement park climax.


THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:


Travel *can* bring people closer together. It definitely might not be a good idea to make yourself up as a zombie and then surprise someone packing heat. Last but not least: keep in good running shape, double-tap Infected bastards in the skull, beware of bathrooms, and always buckle up...just live by those rules (and many others!), and maybe you too can survive a zombie apocalypse!

ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #8: "PLANET TERROR"!

"PLANET TERROR" (2007)

TAGLINE: "Humanity's last hope...rests on a high power machine gun!"

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

It's the zombie apocalypse with a Texas flavor as a rag-tag band of living fight to survive!

IT'S ABOUT TIME ROBERT RODRIGUEZ GRADUATED FROM VAMPIRES TO ZOMBIES!

Well said! In 1996, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez worked with Quentin Tarantino to make "From Dusk Till Dawn", which to many horror fans was a showstopper of a vampire movie. Fans asked themselves how those guys could top that. Rodriguez and Tarantino undoubtedly asked themselves the same thing, and bingo! As they each directed a "Grindhouse" film meant to salute the salad days of exploitation cinema, Rodriguez crafted "Planet Terror", a zombie movie that definitely cleaves its own bloody path!

How? Rodriguez puts in just about every exploitation element guaranteed to have horror fans grinning and to make the politically correct have a heart attack. At the forefront of it all is Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, an exotic dancer who already has her own fair share of problems as the end of the world is brewing. Clandestine crimes are being committed at a nearby military base, and before you can say 'whoops!', a deadly gas escapes that starts turning normal folks into what the movie calls Sickos, Infected-type zombies that ooze as much as they eat human meat. Other plotlines converge, from a lesbian anaestesiologist (Marley Shelton) trying to get away from her borderline-homicidal husband (Josh Brolin), the local sheriff (Michael Biehn) and his barbecue-cooking brother (Jeff Fahey) feuding, an Army officer (Bruce Willis!) with ominous intentions, to lastly (but far from leastly) a guy named El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), who is much much more than he seems.

But first and last, the heart of the story is centered on Cherry, who undergoes a reluctant hero's journey unlike anything you could imagine without heavy liquor involved. First she must suffer the pain of losing one of her lovely money-maker legs. Then, after facing all manner of threats that bring steel to her soul, she's given the means to fight for her own life and for others immune to the zombie plague...by having a machine gun slapped on her stump and blowing away every Sicko in sight!

SO IS IT GOOD?

You have to ask?! It's AWESOME! Even if anybody who watches "Planet Terror" doesn't like it, they can't accuse it of being boring! This movie has a fast and furious pace that pauses only to briefly center on Cherry and other characters Rodriguez and the cast honestly want you to care about. But it's all done with a wink and a pure desire to have fun, which translates to fun for the viewer. And in this movie's universe, exploitation is the name of the game. The fact one lady character is cheating on her husband with another woman can safely be called normal compared to other things that happen! One character, for instance, has a thing for cutting off and collecting testicles! A little boy is looked after by a pair of sexy and foul-mouthed twin sisters. (They're related to Rodriguez, and billed as The Crazy Babysitter Twins!) And another character obsesses about making the perfect barbecue sauce even in the face of zombie invasion!

OKAY, BUT DOES IT HAVE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?

Ahem. Let's do the math. Rodriguez also directed "From Dusk Till Dawn", one of the goriest, most nihilistic vampire movies ever. This is his self-described exploitation movie. You want gore? How does one character getting pulled apart by Sickos grab you? Trust me, it's GORY!

BOTTOM LINE, DID ANYBODY GET OUT ALIVE?

Never mind, just go see the movie!

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:

In an uncertain world, when one suffers tremendous loss...even losing a part of oneself...one must reach within to find the strength to face any obstacle as one reaches without to find the means to preservere. Or, one can simply say, whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger. So if you don't get infected by zombies, just take a machine gun to sub for your missing body part and start kicking ass!

ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #7: "28 WEEKS LATER"!

"28 WEEKS LATER" (2007)

TAGLINE: "When days turn to weeks..."

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

The British try to start over, but the Rage comes back to haunt them.

HEY, WE HAD TO WAIT FIVE YEARS FOR THE SEQUEL! ISN'T THE TITLE A LITTLE OFF?

We're talking about *story time*, you big dummy! The sequel is set 28 weeks after the Rage pandemic, and all the Infected seem to be dead...a NATO force headed by the Americans is working on cleaning up London and bringing back British citizens who had to evacuate before. Their simple yet profound aim is to rebuild the country, and bringing back survivors who once lived there is a big step in that direction. The promise and hope of bringing this part of the world back to normal is embodied in the reunion of two kids with their father, Don (Robert Carlyle). Don has a big skeleton in his past, however...when the outbreak had first hit he abandoned his wife Alice, the kids' mother, to the Infected to save his own skin. It's been a secret shame for him ever since, and he lies about what really happened to the kids.

The kids, a brother and sister, are naturally curious to know more because they miss their mom and want a picture to remember her by. They go into forbidden territory, to their old home in a part of the country that hasn't been cleared as safe, and to everyone's shock they find Alice alive! That's the only good news, though...it turns out from examination she's a carrier for a mutated strain of the Rage Virus. The Americans wisely decide to put Alice down before she can be a danger to anyone else...too late, because Don gets word and manages to find her first. It only takes one kiss for him to be infected with Rage, and all Hell breaks loose. Again...

SO IS IT GOOD?

Danny Boyle played the part of executive producer this time around, giving the directing reins to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. It was a calculated risk to do so, but the results in many ways make the sequel better than "28 Days Later". Although it's much more cinematic in some respects...such as when the military initiate Code Red, to terminate EVERYBODY, and they proceed in spectacular fashion...it's got the same you-are-there documentary feel that brings the viewer deeper into the story. Special kudos go once again to the cast who give excellent performances. We want to feel for Robert Carlyle's Don, even though he's a dick who could have spared everyone a ton of grief if only he had more guts.

OKAY, BUT WAS THERE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?

The sequel isn't just better, it's many many times bloodier. Unlike the original, when we skipped the breakdown of the world by focusing on a guy who was comatose when the Rage first struck, this time we're given a front-row seat to things falling apart and all the bloody terror that goes with it. In the most jarring moments of a chase, a military helicopter flies very low to the ground, and its blades chop scores of Infected to pieces. (Jarring and excellent, too!)

BOTTOM LINE, DID ANYBODY GET OUT ALIVE?

Only those with big guns and a lot of luck are spared, which doesn't include most of the principal characters...I won't spoil things by going further.

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:

If you think you can do anything, like rebuild a country, then brace yourself because anything can happen TO you. A kiss is not just a kiss, especially with Rage-filled spit being in the mouth of one kisser. And here's one for parents: *keep your kids on a short leash!*