The Vanguard (2008)

I love this movie so much

Truly Dreadful Film

A lot of fun.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I'm all for people trying something different with the zombie/infected movie, UNLESS it's at the expense of all that is enjoyable about the genre. The Vanguard attempts a vaguely art-house approach, with a contemplative mood, introspective narrative, a degree of quirkiness, and an attempt at social commentary about racism, but offers none of the stuff that usually makes these kind of films fun: gore, excitement, scares, and more gore.The Vanguard does have a couple of good basic ideas: they're the same ones used for I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, only here they are completely wasted by film-makers with no idea how to turn them into an entertaining movie. The acting is mediocre, the action is dull, the splatter is restricted to some arterial spray (some of it crap CGI), the characters are irritating, and the 'zombies' are very disappointing, loping along like apes, growling like lions, and sporting naff zebra stripes drawn on with face-paint (I realise they're supposed to be like animals, but this is too silly for words).Somehow, this film garnered some decent comments from Fangoria and Gorezone (who are proudly quoted on the DVD cover), and was selected for the Dead by Dawn horror festival; I'm not quite sure how that happened, but take it from me (and the majority here on IMDb who have voiced their opinion)—The Vanguard sucks, even rivalling The Zombie Diaries for the title of worst British zombie film.

I'm not going to beat around the bush - The Vanguard reeks of amateur student film-making. I'm not talking about the low quality of the stock, the lighting, the acting, or anything like that. Those things are all evident but not important. No, I'm talking about the self-important yet somehow meaningless voice narration, the tribal drums soundtrack, and the failed attempt to shoehorn in a political agenda... you know, the very things that student filmmakers live and breathe for.It's sad, because it it wasn't for those weakness, this would be an exceptional zombie movie. It has a fresh take on zombie lore, some great action scenes, and some very engaging and sympathetic characters.Matthew Hope - if you happen to read this - here's my tuppence for your future career... hang up the student pretentiousness and focus on what you're clearly better at - action and characterisation - and you will go far indeed.

The movie had the tired premise of a world gone mad because of a viral agent, a la Resident Evil/28 * later. The low budget gave the film a visceral feel that was ultimately letdown by the mediocrity of the rest of it, ie. poor effects, rambling plot, poor cinematography.Honestly, I'm not even sure what the movie was trying to convey other than that people came, they saw, they fought a little, then most died. I suppose it sets up a back story for a sequel or something. The movie is filled with inconsistencies and plot holes that defy imagination. At the end, they revealed a plot twist that made it somewhat interesting, but again, turned the previous two hours into a 'why' session. Why doesn't it make sense? Why did I just waste 2 hours on this pile of crap? Why does anyone think this movie is good in any sense of the word? Why do some think it's in anyway original? Resident Evil did the same exact thing, but better.The acting was alright and the story did have some interesting premises, in that a corporation wanted to cull the Earth's population because of the sudden decrease in oil, ensuring the survival of the 'elite'. It has some hints of behavioral conditioning that it never really explored beyond a few lines of dialogue between the characters, which might have made things more coherent.Overall, this movie is simply a mediocre attempt at Resident Evil with a male protagonist but it ultimately fails because of the lack of a cohesive plot. They never really explored any of the issues at hand and tried to develop the main character, but ultimately failed by leaving too many unanswered questions.

It's easy to write off films when the genre becomes too popular and overused. Fortunately, zombie films seem to spring forth lots of great ideas from writers and directors, and has again in Vanguard.In a way, it's derivative of Resident Evil, but it adds more complexity into the zombies, so both zombie fans and those feeling zombie boredom creeping up will be happy.The only thing wrong with this film is that it needed more money so that the opening could have been done better, better settings, some better actors could have been used in important or additional roles, and the writer could have hired someone to direct or at least another set of eyes to fix a few gaps in the flow of the film and story integration.Even compared with big-budget sci-fi horror, this is an impressive film. Both the acting and visual FX are much better than typical horror. It doesn't depend on excessive darkness and fade outs to hide the inability of the film crew to make it believable.