Dead Space: Downfall is spin-off of a successful atmospheric sci-fi/horror game. Serving as a prequel, it tells the story of how the player comes to be on a spaceship full of nasty alien creatures that can turn humans into six-limbed killing machines. I’m guessing the idea was to produce something along the lines of The Animatrix, an animated tie-in that is well-received by fans of the original, animation fans and general critics and ties up some loose ends.
Unfortunately, with terrible dialogue, characters it was impossible to like and a very juvenile fetishisation of violence, it was far too bad to like, and almost (only almost) too hard to enjoy with merciless mocking. Made direct-to-DVD by American studio Film Roman, who farm most of the work to Korea and are best-known for animating the bulk of The Simpsons, they manage to make everything look ugly, move awkwardly and sound silly.
The game it’s tied in with is undoubtedly far better, but nothing that interests me. I’ll stick with Aliens, which the film so clearly ripped off that it didn’t even bother to hide it in the last scenes.
(slightly expanded from impressions, 19.8.09)
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