A Damned Disappointment
Following a pandemic in an Asian city, mercenary Major Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) is hired by the owner of the company which caused people to become infected creatures to go in and rescue his daughter Jude (Melanie Zanetti). Whilst Max finds Jude she won't leave without the other survivors lead by Duke (David Field). The thing is that Duke and some of the others don't trust Max and will even sacrifice him for their own safety. But when one of the survivors, Reese (Matt Doran) learns that the city is going to be fire bombed they need Max to try and lead them to safety.
The first thought which whirred through my almost zombified brain is that writer director Christopher Hatton's basic idea is not a bad one with what feels like a fusion of Carpenter's "Escape from New York" with Romero's zombie movies. As such we have a town over run with infected humans due to a companies experiments and are hero risking his life going on a rescue mission. It does elaborate on the set up more with Jude keeping the truth about her father a secret and some power struggle stuff going on as well as some robots but it keeps it simple and for all the little story flourishes you know what to expect.
Now truth be told I like this crossover idea as the two concepts are a nice match but unfortunately the end product feels like it was put out only half finished. The whole movie has a distinct lack of atmosphere so chase scenes never get your adrenalin pumping and moments of Duke being sinister come across weak because there is nothing to them, no sense of darkness.
What this all boils down to is that "Battle of the Damned" ends up a fail and a frustrating one at that as the basic crossover idea has lots of potential with very little of it being fulfilled.
