The great thing about Regal’s Monday Mystery Movies is that you get the opportunity to see films you might not otherwise see, leading to unlikely favorites.
However, the not-so-great thing about going into a theater blind, is the possibility of seeing a dud film.
Regal’s Mystery Movie on Jan. 21 was “Land of Bad”, a military movie following Kinney (Liam Hemsworth), a young Air Force officer on a Delta Force mission gone wrong. Kinney refuses to give up hope or abandon his team and utilizes the help of Reaper, a Air Force drone pilot who watches over Kinney in enemy territory.
An important thing to note is that I have never particularly been a fan of war movies. As someone with little knowledge of military, weapon or war terminology, I am almost always confused. And as expected, there was no exception for “Land of Bad”.
“Land of Bad” is your basic, run of the mill war movie. You can pretty much guess the rising action and climax within the first 20 minutes.
Unfortunately, the predictability isn’t even the most disappointing aspect of this film. To start, the dialogue in the majority of the film is almost impossible to understand. The actors mumble through lines, resulting in missing key details that are likely vital to the plot.
It’s hard to tell whether or not this was an intentional decision. It makes sense at times for characters to speak in hushed tones, but even at times where actors were speaking at normal volumes, their words were not enunciated and it was near impossible to understand their conversations.
Maybe it’s the jumbled dialogue to blame or my lack of military knowledge, but the plot of this movie was not entirely clear. In the beginning, you get a vague idea of the mission they’re supposed to go on, but after that — nothing.
It’s almost as if the point of production was to show off all the cool explosions they could do — and trust me, they were cool. The special effects in “Land of Bad” aren’t anything special, but the mass amount of explosions are entertaining.
It’s clear there was an attempt to create good gore, but it just misses. Gore in films is a touchy thing, as it’s not for everyone. As someone who loves gore, there were several scenes in this movie I had to look away from.
Not because they were too graphic, but because the context behind the gore made the scenes hard to watch. Begging the question — was it really necessary to include those clips?
In the midst of this mediocre movie, only one thing shone through — Russell Crowe. Crowe’s performance wasn’t Oscar worthy by any means, but he had range, strong emotion and most importantly, humor.
The best part of the movie, by far, was the ending. Without giving any spoilers, the suspense in the final moments of the film were unmatched by any other scene. Even though you know what the outcome will be, it’s the how that creates suspense.
The ending is really the only part of the movie worth watching. So if you’re willing to sit through a stereotypical military movie just for a good 20 minutes, then go see “Land of Bad” when it hits theaters on Feb. 16.
This Post Has 3 Comments
I saw it and loved it! Clearly you should be watching movies like Mean Girls.
Respectfully you should not review movies when you are already bias towards the type of movie. I myself can’t wait to see this one. Even if it’s a popcorn flick.
This movie was ridiculous for anyone who knows anything about AF special operations. The AF officer should have been labeled as TACP. They go through some serious training as do Combat Controllers and Pararescue. They made him out to be an idiot in the beginning. Probably would have a Pararescue guy also because they specialize in rescue behind enemy lines and have excellent medical training.