It won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone to hear that Bridge of the Doomed isn’t much good. It’s rubbish, in fact. The acting is poor, the script is lifeless and the whole thing is enlivened only by endless scenes of people being divested of ropes of intestines which are then merrily munched on by groups of wonky-looking zombies. Cleary whatever passed for a budget here was spent on fake intestines and to that end, at least, it was money well spent.
The story, if you must know, is set during a worldwide zombie apocalypse (and you thought we’d moved beyond this?) revealed via a number of increasingly alarming TV news reports. Our heroes are a bunch of A-grade unconvincing soldiers tasked with protecting and holding a small bridge which is apparently critical to the survival of civilisation as we know it from falling to the zombie hordes (usually about six of them at any one time). Beardy General Vasquez (Robert LaSardo) is the group’s top man and in the first thirty minutes alone there are a dizzying number of scenes set in his thinly-dressed command tent where a succession of soldiers and civilians wander in and everyone salutes one another before spouting some nonsensical pseudo-military dialogue. It’s tortuous and interminable and there’s probably a salute-based drinking game here somewhere; it’d certainly alleviate the tedium of cringing at the inept acting.
Things improve slightly – and it’d be hard to imagine how they could get much worse – when the film moves outside and we discover that there’s something nasty and blood-thirsty (and not zombie) lurking under the bridge. Sadly it’s just a man in a fairly ropey monster costume. The group are picked off one by one (and occasionally they pick each other off) as tough nut Sgt Hernandez (Kate Watson) finds herself fighting for her life against this new threat even as the zombies close in and threaten the security of the bridge.
There’s nothing here we’ve not seen before and it all feels tired, derivative and desperately amateur. Director Michael Su keeps things moving along and he’s clearly at home with the action and the gore with some sturdy practical effects in place of way-beyond-the-budget CGI but an uninspiring plot, shoddy acting and cliché-ridden script mean that this one’s dead on arrival for all but the most determined zombie zealot.
Bridge of the Doomed is released in the US on November 4th.
