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Maplewoods (2003) directed by David B. Stewart.
(MF Title: “Commando Recon Assault Paratroop team against the zombies”)
Starring Thomas Reilly, David B. Stewart Jr, Sean Hutcheon, John Weidemoyer and Robert Schiller.
Zombie Film Rating:

Overview: An elite army special forces unit is given a mission to infiltrate and destroy a secret weapons lab. The lab was continuing research developed by the Germans during the war, and it is believed the experiments may have gotten out of hand.

Despite the incredible danger of this mission, the unit is equipped exclusively with sidearms, denied standard fatigues and assigned a CIA field agent (you can tell, he has a CIA logo on his jumpsuit) to lead them to the facility (when maps would have sufficed). We’re left with the feeling that someone at the pentagon is giggling about this mission.

Too bad the audience isn’t….

Summary: The movie (eventually) opens with an Army officer meeting with a prisoner at Fort Leavenworth. The gist of their conversation is that the prisoner is a disgraced army General who led a small mission in which everything went horribly wrong. A series of flashbacks begin detailing the failed mission from the Generals perspective.

The General is appraoched about a top secret mission. He and his team will need to attend a top secret facility, destroy “EVERYTHING” and escape. Overcoming the resistance of any “specimens” that may be wandering around. The General is aware of the “Maplewoods” project, as his father was involved in it when the material was taken over from the Germans at the end of the war (small world, huh?).

We jump to generic boot camp scene #342 where the general is addressing his hastily assembled team. A stirring speach follows, and we find that these men and women represent the “best of the best” (I weep for the future of the military). A CIA agent is introduced, as he will serve as a guide for the Army personnel (despite his only qualification being having “studied” the maps, uh…couldn’t the army types have done that themselves?).

The team is transported (we assume by helicopter) to a random spot in the woods and proceed to the facility on foot. We really get our first look at the “elite team” here, and wow was I disappointed. The entire arsenal possessed by this team consists of 14 sidearms, and a single pump action shotgun. The uniforms appear to be Khaki shirts and pants, and balaclavas (which was a neat “War in the Desert” retro look, but not real practical).

Entering the facility the general assigns one of his men to restart the generators with the CIA guy along for company. At this point things get a little confusing. While one half of the “team” proceed to the underground lab by elevator, the CIA guy kills the soldier working on the generators. He then (presumably) kills the power to the elevator trapping half the soldiers below.

The soldiers are, of course, slaughtered like the zombie fodder we expected them to be, and much dramatics result above ground. The CIA agents betrayal is discovered immediately, and a shoot out follows and after killing one soldier and wounding two others he is gunned down with appropriate violence.

A sole surviving soldier below now reports in, badly wounded the soldier has made it to the objective (the lab) and is reporting that there is a bomb counting down in the lab. He of course dies before he can report how much time is left. The general now decides to proceed to the underground lab on his own (sure, if 6 guys got wasted, one should be fine…right?).

While the general runs around underground killing zombies the survivors above ground lose communications with him, and the ranking officer decides that the group should flee (a good decision, except that its dark, they’re surrounded by zombies and they have no destination). A few soldiers remain, but the bulk flit out the door and into the night.

The general in the meantime has discovered the bomb is set to explode in the morning, and returns to find the few soldiers that remained loyal. Once morning arrives (and the previous escape party has been largely decimated) the general and company make their escape. Naturally their numbers dwindle as soldiers make heroic sacrifices (and John Wayne cliche quotes) to allow the party to escape.

Just as the general and the SOLE surviving soldier (wounded to boot) near the edge of the “safe” area they encounter the evil general and generic CIA guy waiting for them (they picked a good random spot, didn’t they?) and after a short shoot-out the general steals their car and escapes moments before the bomb explodes.

Critique: Holy crap. Where to start? What the hell were they doing with sidearms only? Why did they even have to attend the lab if there was already a bomb inside? Why was the CIA guy double-crossing the soldiers at all? What the hell were the writers thinking?

Yes, the logic here is entirely absent (and this from a genre where leaps of faith are common), and I fear if I smacked my forehead one more time while watching this I would have lost consciousness. The elite team lacked any sort of tactical awareness, and the miltiary-esque dialogue is actually painful to watch.The dialogue is difficult to follow (the characters seem to be either bellowing or whispering), the lighting is poor (intentionally no doubt) and this must be the first zombie movie where my uttering “what the f*ck!” outnumbered “shoot them in the head!”.

The Final Word: This is not the worst zombie movie ever, they had a good idea but stumbled in its execution. Most of my disappointment stemmed from the missed potential here. If you get a chance to rent this one go for it, but don’t bother to buy a copy unless you’re a zombie fanatic.

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