No movie can be all bad.
This is a motto that I have lived by for many years. I believe that nothing can be completely bad… that some good can be found in everything. As bad as Spice World was, it had some great moments. Its sarcastic look at the music business was often clever, even if its stars weren’t. Tomcats was a horrible film with major continuity issues. Having said that, it did have some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.
My belief system has been shaken to the core, howev…r, upon viewing Defiance. This film truly had nothing going for it. The story was convoluted and pointless, the special effects were unrealistic, the sets were almost non-existent, and the acting… oh the acting. The purely horrid acting was so unbelievably bad that I actually felt embarrassed for the actors themselves. How must one be able to look himself in the mirror every day, knowing that he was partially responsible for this film. The horror, the horror.
I had considered comparing this movie to a re-enactment, the likes of which one might find late at night on The History Channel. Though the film certainly has this feel (complete with narration throughout), I feel that this is not a fair comparison. While the bits on The History Channel are tolerable, even sometimes entertaining, this “film” is lost before it even begins. This is a horrible, horrible film. Viewers could most certainly have more fun spending an evening reading the phone book.
Audio
This is a poor excuse for an audio track. The Dolby Stereo 2.0 track is tightly compressed, with an extremely narrow dynamic range. Gunshots sound flat and tinny, with virtually nothing for the subwoofer to do but sleep. The guitar, flute and synthesizer score doesn’t help to liven up the action much, either. This is a very week soundtrack.
Video
The video quality, believe it or not, is actually worse than the audio. The full screen video feed is full of problems, including screen blemishes and excessive grain throughout. The worst problem is with the fog. The entire picture has a hazy film over it, giving it the feeling of a Barbara Walters Special without the tears. Some shots are actually out of focus, as if the cameraman himself were crying over his failed career choices while filming. If you can think of something that could be wrong with the picture on a DVD, this film has that problem.
Special Features
The only special features on this disc are trailers for the feature, the similar-looking film Long Ride Home, and an intriguing film called South of Heaven, West of Hell. All are full frame 2.0 presentations. No other extras are here, and I’m quite relieved about that. There is mercifully less to watch that way.
Final Thoughts
I should have known that I would be in for a bad experience when I noticed that the feature runs only 73 minutes in length. Nothing could have prepared me for what a horrible film this is, however. There is “bad” cinema, there is “nice try” cinema, there is “so bad it’s funny cinema”, and then there is this. This film is so bad that it actually reaches groundbreaking new lows in cinema.
As it was so wonderfully stated in Adam Sandler’s wonderful film Billy Madison, “I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Special Features List
- Three Theatrical Trailers
