A werewolf virus is unleashed upon New York, and Major Hoffman looks for a cure while Lt. General Monning wants to establish a new canine army. Battledogs is your standard Saturday Night SyFy New Release, Made for TV fare. Plot development/acting average to above average for this category of film. Ditto for silly (i.e, you laugh when it's supposed to be highly dramatic or bad gore)content.<br/><br/>What did impress me is that SyFy was willing to spend some more money on production. All locations were not shot in Vancouver/British Columbia, trying to pass itself off as one of innumerable cities/areas in the US. The 'Ward Island' scenes were filmed in Buffalo's abandoned (but now being restored) train station. A car wreck scene actually included wrecking vehicles. The identifiable New York City location were mostly all stock shots with CGI additions. However, there was one scene that really appeared to be filmed in front of the New York Stock Exchange.<br/><br/>Bravo to SyFy for willing to up the quality of their productions. SyFy have a notoriously bad reputation, though there are some tolerable movies of theirs out there even if they are too far and between. Battledogs was a movie that I wasn't sure what to make of, it wasn't a particularly good one but neither was it a disaster. I am in complete agreement with the acting being the best asset, the cast were a good one to begin with and they all give fun performances, especially Ernie Hudson. Battledogs is a better-looking movie than most SyFy movies, true the CGI is not particularly great(not really much of a surprise though) but the dogs/werewolves were fairly convincing, the scenery is good and the editing is not too choppy. The music and sound mayn't win any awards as such, but they are atmospheric and sharp enough and serve their purpose well. The car wreck scene was quite an exciting set piece, and the gore isn't too shabby either. Battledogs is not without its flaws though. There is some nice tongue and cheek humour in the script, but too much of the dialogue is cheesy, unnaturally flowed and not always fitting in certain scenes. There is also a rather make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel. The story is a mixed bag. The good news is, it didn't bore me particularly and the nods to King Kong, Free Willy and Day of the Dead original were nice; the bad news is, nothing comes out as original and the mix of sci-fi and horror is confused. Maybe it would help if those two elements individually worked, sadly they don't; it is not thrilling enough to be good sci-fi and it's not scary enough to be good horror either. And it is largely to do with the overall quality of the CGI, the poor suspense and how tame and uninventive the attacks seemed to be. I'd forgive the fact that the characters are overused stereotypes if anything interesting was done with them, but despite the efforts of the actors the characters never were developed or likable enough. And how inaccurately and poorly the military are portrayed is likely to get people even more infuriated, especially if they're part of the military themselves. In conclusion, not terrible or great. 5/10 Bethany Cox
Festukall replied
371 weeks ago