UKM: The Ultimate Killing Machine (2006)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Michael Madsen mumbles his way to another giro check in this horror, where a bunch of annoying teens are pursued through some sort of complex by an unstoppable killer marine. You've seen this film dozens of times over the decades so why bother with this one? No really, I'm asking you. You've got your contemporary annoying teens (drug addict, geek, err…moody one etc) that'll be laughably dated in about ten years, all sent to 'participate' in some experiment to create super soldiers. Blah blah failed experiment escapes. Blah blah running around. Shouting etc. Slight gore even. Cold-hearted scientists. More running around. Sigh.Honestly, I'm struggling to remember anything out of the ordinary about this one.

Four high-school losers—crack addict Zoe (Victoria Nestorowicz), wimp Buddy (Steve Arbuckle), rebel Waylon (Mac Fyfe) and runaway Carrie (Erin Mackinnon)—hope to turn their lives around by enlisting in the army, but wind up as guinea pigs in the Havoc project, a top-secret experiment designed to turn recruitment rejects into unstoppable super-soldiers. After receiving the treatment—delivered via a massive great needle rammed into the spine—they realise that something is seriously wrong and attempt to escape from the secure military base where they are being held; in doing so, they accidentally release an earlier test subject—war hero Sgt. Dodds—who has been turned into a bloodthirsty killer fuelled by rage and is out to even the score with those responsible for his miserable state.UKM: Ultimate Killing Machine is a case of nice try, but no cigar. The basic plot has oodles of exploitative potential, but the film doesn't go anywhere near to living up to its awesome sounding title. First off, the character of failed test subject Dodds is a real let-down: my idea of an scientifically engineered 'ultimate killing machine' would preferably involve machine guns in the arms, laser eyes, and razor wire skin; clearly the budget couldn't stretch to that, but it would have been nice to have seen a little more effort to make this botched experiment more memorable than he was—barring a few facial scars, Dodds looks exactly like he did before the procedure.Another plot element that seriously under-delivers is the unexpected side-effect of the treatment, a raging libido that gets stronger the more the patient gets agitated. With the characters getting progressively randier (and in the case of the girls, more attractive), one might reasonably expect at least one gratuitous sex scene, but every time a guy and gal show any sign of getting down to business, something occurs to cut the scene short. Dodds gets as far as stripping a sexy scientist down to her army regulation purple silk stockings, suspender belt and bra, but he accidentally breaks her neck before he can give her any serious attention. What a swizz!Worse still is Michael Madsen's woeful performance as nasty Major Blevins, who oversees the Havoc project. Clearly going through the motions just to pay the bills, Madsen puts about as much effort into his acting as I have into ensuring that this reviw is free of speling mistaks. In the end, what narrowly prevents UKM: Ultimate Killing Machine from being a total waste of time is the occasional spot of decent splatter, which includes a cool decapitation, a squishy scene in which a soldier has his face torn off, and some poor soul being cut into a pile of bloody chunks. When all else fails, at least old-school gore can be relied upon to put some pep into proceedings.

Another embarrassment to Canadian film making. I think it was supposed to have some humour, but again first rule about being funny: don't try to be funny. Also, the acting was terrible, how anyone justifies putting the time in to do something like this and then some other jerk justifies buying it and then some idiot at Rogers justifies putting it on the air? I don't know. To the actors of this film, take some acting lessons and dig deep, because the audience deserves it. Acting is not easy and if you think you've done it here, you should probably quit. The whole thing is terrible. Terrible. Terrible. I could not even get past the first ten minutes. Michael Madsen is a good actor, but even the editing and shot selection made him look kind of weak.

I know it's always a bad sign, these days, to see Michael Madsen starring a movie. Even though he has been - and perhaps in some ways still is - a decent actor, he's been making a lot of bad B-movies lately and surprisingly, this is even worse than BloodRayne. He has come far from the days of Reservoir Dogs and both Kill Bills, but apparently lacking the sense of staying far enough from movies like this.First of all, this movie has an identity problem. It's like a compilation of all those clichés you have seen in about every other movie, but only worse. The movie begins like any other cheap scifi horror flick, where people are tested against their will by the US Army and some ketchup gets sprayed on the walls as your regular monster gets loose for a moment. Then we go into a teen comedy, where four teens act like they do in every other teen movie, all so rebellious. Since these teens are all scum, yet in different ways, they get the privilege to carry on for the rest of the movie. They hate each other and the army, then they hate a bit more, after the evil experiments they get away, get couple of totally incompetent guards beaten up, and then they bond and fight each other, while those same incompetent guards get killed by the monster from the intro sequence, losing their heads and faces, while Mr Madsen tries to figure out what to do with the old, crazy nazi and the lovely nurse. Luckily all three get killed by the monster. In the end there is supposed to be an explosion, but since the budget was pretty close to twenty bucks in the beginning, there's not even any cheap CGI in the movie, but just a flash with couple of booms. Oh, forgot to mention about that one girl, who got shot in her forehead.This movie lacks all the logic and even all the suspension, as you can only watch with your jaws open and wonder if you are supposed to be laughing at or just frightened about all those horrible things you see on the screen. Yes, the acting is horrible, the properties seem to be made by a six-year old Chinese, and since there is no script, I can't see why there was an add-on romance in this movie. Maybe it was an accident.To make it short, if you want to spend some time doing something totally useless, watch this film. It will make you feel better about your real life, as escapism this bad is surely worse than anything one could ever face in the real world.