The Eliminator (2004)

Sadly Over-hyped

Better Late Then Never

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

As other users have pointed out, the basic idea behind "The Eliminator" is not a new one - it's the old "Most Dangerous Game" formula. Despite the familiar plot, it still could have been enjoyable in a trashy yet satisfying B movie manner. However, this particular telling is one of the worst I have seen in quite some time. It quickly becomes clear that the production didn't have a lot of money to spend on production values (probably hiring actor Michael Rooker blew a lot of the limited budget.) The movie is terribly shot, from the washed out cinematography to the often incompetent lighting. The movie is also terribly directed; there are a number of continuity errors, confusing moments, and the action scenes (the meat of the movie) come across more often than not as lame and unexciting. And there is a constant feeling of the entire enterprise being done as cheaply and quickly as possible.Is there any merit to be found in the movie? Well, there is Bas Rutten as the chief protagonist. Don't get me wrong, he's a pretty poor actor, but he does have some charm and charisma that gets you to see he could do okay in a more professionally made movie. Anything else? Well, you can play a drinking game with your buddies. Take a drink every time the action cuts to footage of the sun, clouds, or stars moving quickly across the sky. You'll be seriously blotto by the end of the movie! But if you want to see a GOOD telling of this old formula, seek out the B movies "Surviving The Game" and "Raw Courage" instead

THE ELIMINATOR is another B-movie action flick along the lines of BATTLE ROYALE and THE CONDEMNED, which sees a group of disparate fighters abandoned on a tropical island, where they'll be hunted down by armed men every night. The twist is that each fighter has his or her own sponsor backing them.Unfortunately, this turns out to be a complete waste of time, and actually one of the worst-made films I've seen in a good while. The writing is mundane, but the direction is even worse; you rarely see films that have been edited this badly, with cameras in the wrong place and a general amateurish feel to the whole thing. The poor quality also renders the low budget action sequences a mess, and impossible to enjoy.It goes without saying that the acting is equally bad, the cast populated by non-entities you've never heard of. The exception is poor Michael Rooker (SLITHER), who must have grabbed his pay-cheque and run, and can you blame him? THE ELIMINATOR is complete trash, impossible for even this B-movie fan to enjoy.

I've given the 3 solely for the excellent short story on which this is based. For jaded wealthy people, the ultimate bet is on a human's ability to survive. You produce your candidate, place your bet, put all the competitors on an island, then set the hunters on them - it's a winner-takes-all survival game. Great plot, but, oh dear, what a mess has been made of it. The film quality is blurry and often strangely-coloured, the editing is jumpy, the fight scenes phenomenally and cartoonishly unrealistic, the sound often not good, and the acting is mostly wooden, with the possible exception of Michael Rooker (Merle from 'The Walking Dead'). It is also full of random banks of cloud groaning across the sky ! On the other hand, the house where the rich gamblers congregate is very pretty.Really not worth wasting your time on, I'm afraid.

I can't say is the worst movie I've ever seen, is the second one in the series. Maybe Bas Ruten is a good fighter and maybe someday he will become an actor, who knows? But why I am talking about Bas Ruten? First of all I must talk about director, writing, plot or is better to never talk about these stuff, because are inexistent. I've seen many movies in my life and in the last years 90% of all American movies are just garbage. Is not a surprise if you discover that a movie so called great is so great just because it was seen by a stupid people. Hey, you won't wake never? The advertise and mass media, just had you all? You have no brain still? How could you make all the movie the same f.....g way? They are fighting so many times without a single scratch, they are leaving the guns beside, they always find a way to reach the bad guys, you still believe in fairy tooth? Or red hoodwinked? Even Van Damme is better than this one. Maybe you should start to see movies from Europe and to not believe everything is told to you by your beloved compatriots, the Americans. A movie like this is enough to f.ck all the week-end and the next month too. Is a perfect punish for your enemy.