First off I must say I really enjoyed this movie and the inventive the props and costumes, as well as all the classic horror/thriller homages, and nerdy cultural references (I mean the whole magician seen looked like they took people from Comic Con, and many people in this movie make stuff for conventions like it).Razor starts out as a humble soldier hired into an elite gang of mercenaries (The Wolf Pack) protecting/serving a prestigious government official in a post-apocalyptic Spain. This government official seeks to trade the new Satanic Messiah's corpse to a powerful Archdemon in exchange for power. He breaks the rules for negotiating with demons, showing disrespect and angering him, resulting in his own death and almost the entire wolf pack, save Cortes 'The Wolf' himself (saved by Fulconi's magic, essentially playing possum) and Razor, who naively makes the deal instead. The Archdemon gives Razor demonic power by marring his flesh (similar to the Messiah), but in the process this warps his mind and personality. Razor begins calling himself Razorback and begins a bloody coup, taking almost complete control of Spain, leaving his pregnant wife, Lisa, at home. Mimicking his own ritual, Razorback has cursed his best soldiers (which is why they also have white eyes). The official's wife and a rebel squadron kidnap Lisa with the plan of forcing Razorback's hand.After month's of torture (and a miscarriage), it becomes clear that Razorback no longer cares for her, so their best assassin Arteeka trains Lisa with the promise of revenge against her ex-husband. She becomes Shabira (a sexy bondage ninja), and while trying to infiltrate Razorback's training compound assists in killing Ursula (his second-in- command). Upon seeing the box's marking on a rebel, Razorback becomes curious and eventually discovers the truth: That the Messiah's corpse will eventually be reborn in Hell, giving the Archdemon immense power, and allowing him to freely crossover and rule the world. The time he has left is represented by the dual helix blood hourglass. Furious, Razorback hunts down every magician he can find and orders them to slow or reverse the process. Unfortunately, they only speed it up (he is pained at each incremental drain of life force), so he executes them all.He then changes tactics, building up arms, and seeking to summon the demon again before he reaches full power, and to kill him first. Thus he targets Falconi and puts up a random. Cortes' goons find Falconi in the slums, and he narrowly escapes capture, teleporting himself and Rebecca to the middle of nowhere. It is here he describes how she came to be. She is actually the Archangel Azazel, who came down to conquer Earth. When the Messiah made the original pact with the devil, he gave their magic to humans and used it to imprison her, as she was too powerful to kill at the time (decimating her legion afterwards). Razorback freed her, cut off her wings, surgically wiped her mind, and created three autonomous clones of her (claiming she was one as well).Falconi tries to contact the rebels and stop Razorback's plan but ends up getting turned over instead, and the entire rebel faction is wiped out. Razorback summons the Archdemon, only to have his demonic powers taken away and the demon-hybrid soldiers revolt. Most of his forces die as well (including Kato), leaving Rebecca to fight the demon. Her powers gradually awaken, leading the demon to go Super Saiyan and a fight straight out of your favorite fighting game. Rebecca regains her memories and is about to kill everyone else, when her schoolgirl clone stops her. This reminds Azazel of her kindred angels (and Rebecca's kindred droids), but is a trap to kill her before she finishes regrowing her wings and regaining her power.I don't know why people had such a hard time following this, quite honestly. I only rate it a 9 because it was a bit melodramatic, and there wasn't enough magic. Regardless how you feel about the movie, I think we can all agree that Caro Angus is one of the sexiest beings on the planet.
... View MoreI actually wanted to give this movie a 7.5, and not an 8, but the IMDb system doesn't let you do that, so I rounded up, because for all its many problems, this movie won me over. You'll notice that the other reviewers complained about the lack of coherence in the story line. I get that, and I agree with them. This is, in some ways, an awful movie. But it's awful in interesting ways...it's the movie that the first "Underworld" COULD have been. The deal-breaker for most people is going to be that you are dropped into the middle of a situation with very little backstory or exposition or character set up, and you never really get anything more than the barest sketches of anything resembling that as the movie progresses. And characters the movie has been following die abruptly and the movie then switches to OTHER characters who pull out new abilities and fighting moves and backstories from nowhere, with very little justification or setup. So the end result is like watching a series of "Metal Hurlant" episodes, or (as one earlier reviewer cleverly noticed) extended versions of the old animated "Aeon Flux" cartoons.You never know quite what's going on, or why people are doing what they do, and the fact that one actress plays several different roles (with the barest throwaway description of "synthetic combat robots" or some such silliness) only adds to the confusion. However, if you can put up with that, you can groove on some wildly inventive character designs, costumes, makeup, and fight scenes. And for all the lack of actual character development in the screenplay, the actors pump huge amounts of energy into filling out their cardboard roles. "Falcinelli", who seems to be sort of the "hero" in this, is especially good. All you ever learn about him is that he's a low level street wizard who mostly uses a Tarot deck to work his magic and is something of a scoundrel who enjoys cigars...but man, he is fun to watch in action. So: should you watch this? I can't tell what kind of mood you will be in when you start watching, so I can't tell whether it will pull you in or annoy the hell out of you. But you might like it.
... View MoreThis movie is a perfect example of when you have a good cast, and good spec fx budget, costumes stunts etc but absolutely no story.All this movie is - a collection loosely kludged together fight scenes involving drug deals going wrong - instead of drugs, it is magic and demonic stuff.I forgot to count how many because of the sometimes lengthy fight scenes that followed.plus whomever wrote the screen play had no research on the angels and demons that were in the movie.If you like demons doing kung fu - (I wonder how they all learn kung fu in hell?) then this movie is definitely for you
... View MoreIn Germany there is a saying, that goes (translated): "this seems Spanish to me". You say that if you don't understand something. Either literally or mostly metaphorically speaking. In this case, both can be true. It's Science Fiction, that is something everyone can agree on. It has a lot of CGI in it and good fights evil.It also has someone trying to take over the world, a McGuffin (for better or worse) and some action. Also character changes that are so mental that you'll have a hard time to follow them. Let alone the "story". Not to mention the robots/humans and different versions of them. Motivations? Well, who cares right? You do? Maybe not watch this then ...
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