Friday, October 30, 2015

The Lazarus Effect

(2015) **

Some plucky researchers representing a wonderful cross-section of universities (the stoner, the uptight guy, the black guy, the cute girl, the smart cute girl), are experimenting on a serum that can keep people alive when death is imminent.  They experiment mostly on animals, but when a lab accident kills one of their own, they decide to try it on their colleague.

This movie gets two stars for the very cool cast.  Unfortunately, their talents are wasted.  The rest is kind of a mess.  Part of the problem is that the movie can't really decide where to go.  Once their colleague gets reanimated, she becomes a mix of firestarter/zombie/limitless Lucy/Carrie.  You're never really sure what everyone should be afraid of or what to expect.  She can do anything.  She's  a zombie superhero.

This movie is really short though.  Once you take out the lengthy opening/closing credits, the actual run time is 73 minutes.  Despite that, it takes until 53 minutes into the movie for the lab assistant to be re-animated.  Considering the title and poster of the movie, it's not like her turning is really a surprise.  The first 53 minutes is wasted with the dog being creepy, some bureaucratic arguments over ethics, some subplot about a love triangle and which lab assistants think the other lab assistants are cute.  And, none of it really goes anywhere.

Free on netflix if you need to pad your numbers - The Lazarus Effect!

5 comments:

JPX said...

Great review for what sounds like a laaaame movie!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I have almost fired this one up on a number of occasions. I think your underwhelming rating has convinced me to pass.

AC said...

Boooo (for the movie)!
Yay (for being warned off and saving 73+ minutes during our few, precious, remaining October hours)!

Catfreeek said...

"(the stoner, the uptight guy, the black guy, the cute girl, the smart cute girl)" now this is one of my pet peeves, would these people ever really interact in real life? It's even worse if the unlikely "friends" are going camping together, as if!

Octopunk said...

You're so right, Cat! How about a group of people who are into the same things but are distinct in other, subtler ways?

Your rundown of the events in this is enough of a killer for me. I like the idea of re-animation leading to unexpected results but this sounds dumb. Like the snarky sign-off, though.

Malevolent

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