 The Battle Weary ROSSMANHoly fucking
shit.... They made it. They actually made it. The ULTIMATE action
movie. Unbefuckinglievable. And it stars kids. Don't
that beat all.
Battle
Royale has to be the most fucked up movie I've ever seen
since Meet the Feebles back in '92. BR is bizarre,
yet it even screams out that it has a message... Sort of. But
I'm getting ahead of myself yet again. First I have to tell
you what it's about.
In case you've
been living in a cave for the past year, or you're as retarded
as the family dog after Corky gave it a big, mental bear hug
and cut off its oxygen for a good 5 minutes, it goes a little
something like this: Japan in the near future is in trouble.
The economy is in the shitter and juvenile delinquency is overrunning
the entire nation. How does one combat a problem such as this?
Well, my fellow Americans basically look away and pretend that
it isn't happening. But this Japan of the future thought long
and hard about it and came up with a super cool solution: The
BR Act. The BR Act is their last resort at stopping youth crimes
and stupidity. Every year a random class of middle or high schoolers
is kidnapped by the government and dropped off on some abandoned
island. Each student is then given a weapon or tool (i.e. guns,
knives, binoculars, tracking system) and thrown out into the
wild to play the ultimate game of survival. They then have 3
days to kill everybody else on the island by whatever means
necessary. At the end of the time limit, if there is more than
one teen standing, their Running Man-esque tracking collars
will explode. You see, like the Highlander there can BE
only one!
Sounds corny?
Possibly. But no explanation could ever do this film justice.
It is soooo cut-ass rugged. The violence is brutal and almost
unreal. For example, while the teacher is explaining the rules
of the Act to the children, he casually chucks a knife into
the head of an interrupting teenie bopper in order to shut her
the hell up. Then he leaves her corpse in the center of the
room while he continues talking. Brilliant! That scene with
the dead body on the floor lasts around ten minutes. The dead
girl just lies there surrounded by crying and shaking classmates
for TEN MINUTES. It was really creepy.
What was
also kind of eerie is the way that some of the kids decide to
handle the situation they're thrown into. Some turn into incredible
pussies and commit suicide as an alternative to slaughtering
their friends (in one quick segment some boy is pulled off a
cliff by his pansy girlfriend and he truly doesn't want to go
out that way). Some try to find peaceful ways to get around
the official rules of the BR Act. And the rest go ape shit crazy
with power. The ones who do that make this movie the
incredible flick that it is. These children use the most creative
ways to kill their enemies and amigos. A few set traps. Several
go hunting. And some try to turn the "game" back
onto the adults who set up camp in the highly guarded school
in the
center of the island.
Pandemonium
is what this movie is about. Watching kids shoot the shit out
of their childhood sweethearts all in the name of survival.
Quite a few seem to enjoy themselves a bit too much which gave
me the chills because I'm a big pansy. There are quite a few
intentional laughs throughout the story (mostly dark dark jokes
about the bloodbaths that spurt up all over the place). But
rest assured, this ain't no comedy. This sure as hell is not
your father's Ah-nold movie. There really isn't even a point
to this whole experiment either. By the end of everything the
BR Act is still in place and apparently still very necessary.
The schools are still in shambles and kids are still total assholes,
but there's just a few less of them when the bullets stop flying.
Kinda makes you think.... Message!
So, what
did I think of the crimson encompassed Battle Royale?
I find that I have to give it a very worthy 69 out
of 70.34 Rossman points of violence. Never before had I experienced
anything as straight up disturbing as that "how to" video
that the kids have to watch at the beginning of the movie.
That chick was waaaaaaay too perky.
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