1h 33m | Not Rated
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All the talk about Bruce Willis in the other thread got my wanting to check out some of the bargain basement straight to DVD movies he's been phoning in. Apex really kicked things off and only almost made me want to kill myself.
It is a "Surviving the Game" or Man-hunts-man idea where a bunch of ultra rich are teleported to an island to hunt someone who is the Prey. Why are they teleported there and why does teleportation exist? Why do holograms exist? I think there's some future plot going on there but it isn't at all relevant and the technology adds nothing to the movie. So washed up Bruce Willis plays washed up Bruce Willis who is the mostest dangerous prey ever recruited to the island. He's wanted in 50,000 states and committed 100,000 offenses and has been in solitary confinement with no interaction with another human being in 7 years. Why is this relevant? It isn't. Neal McDonough plays the Apex Hunter out of the group. He's an annoying caricature of a know it all zen murderer. Boring. He's also lost a lot of weight in his face and looks like a middle aged Rob Lowe. It is really unnerving in some scenes.
Haven't read anything about this but I have a couple of theories and observations.
1) I am not 100% but there is no clear scene in the movie where Bruce Willis actually appears alongside another actor. Almost positive all his scenes were filmed alone and edited to look like he was on the set and filming with them. Any shot that would include Bruce + 1 is from behind and obscuring his face. Otherwise scenes are single individual cuts between the two having a conversation. Even with Neal McDonough. Which brings me to...
2) Was this supposed to be a completely different movie? And they salvaged it by splicing scenes of Bruce Willis in? Like was there something on the cutting room floor and Bruce needed a couple of bucks and sold 30 minutes of his day to go film some post production scenes on a set to score some free coffee and a sandwich? Very strange.
I mean no one else is going to watch this so... Bruce basically doesn't even kill anyone. He convinces them all to kill each other. This minimizes his interactions with the other actors so most of the "action" takes places with people who were actually filming together. It is also a huge island and the whole thing takes place over the course of a day. And they just teleport to a bland living room to talk and then back out in to the woods. Then to a room with firearms. Then the woods. Always magically next to "not there" Bruce Willis.
Megan Peta Hill was cool to see if you ever watched iZombie, Supernatural, X-Files (2016), The Flash, Riverdale. She's one of those chick of the week guest stars. In fact almost every supporting member is a TV Series person with few to no films. Except one guy who was one of the writers of this trash.
The director, Edward Drake, did another movie with Bruce called Cosmic Sin which I'll probably watch next. It has three of the same supporting cast also (Corey Large [writer], Trevor Gretzky, and Lochlyn Munro (budget Bronn).
I expect great things.
3/10; +/-1
