Regenerator (2015)
Starring Olivier Gruner, Brad Potts, Paul Logan, David J. Phillips, Marisela
Directed by Patrick Shanavian and Olivier Gruner
I’d offer up a spoiler warning for this review, but what the hell can I really spoil? The shame of the filmmakers?
Regenerator isn’t a movie. It’s a salvage operation; a salvage operation that begs the question as to what did anyone think was worth salvaging aside from whatever few shekels they had sunk into this amateur hour production. I suspect there’s probably one hell of a behind-the-scenes story about the problems that clearly plagued this production that began in 2010 but did not get released until now in some form vaguely resembling a motion picture.
Make no mistake about it – there is no actual movie here. This is a collection of scenes, primarily of the b-roll variety, stapled together, only some of which actually pertain to what might be construed by less discerning individuals people as a plot. It certainly does not form a cohesive narrative.
If you know your direct-to-video action movie stars of 1990s and early 2000s, then you know doubt know the name Olivier Gruner as something of the poor man’s Jean-Claude Van Damme. Regenerator appears to be his baby, as his name is listed as star, producer, writer, and co-director. Given how little Gruner is actually on the screen, I’m speculating he’s the one who jumped ship on this production at some point.
Gruner, sporting a mohawk threatening to erupt into a mullet at any second, plays a genetically engineered super-soldier called “The Beast” with the ability to regenerate his cells. Essentially, he’s immortal. He’s also insane. After all, if you’re going to create an unkillable soldier, why wouldn’t you want to give that ability to a homicidal maniac? You can kill him, but unless you completely destroy his body, his cells will regenerate within 20 seconds and he’ll come back to life. More time is devoted to detailing what he is and what his powers are than actually seeing any of it in action. I mean, he doesn’t even kill anyone until 40 minutes into a barely 80-minute film. Even his escape is due to someone else’s blunder.
While this premise may sound like the set-up for a sci-fi action movie, Regenerator is more of a lame slasher with a military-grade Michael Myers stalking and stabbing pot-smoking slackers. Calling in a stealth bomber to smart-bomb a mountain with a mini-nuke just to take out one super-soldier that’s only hacked up a few stoners seemed a bit excessive in my book.
Let me summarize his limited screen time: Gruner looks around, walks around, crouches, stands up, looks around some more, crouches longer, walks a bit more, and periodically lurks in the shadows or behind a bush for long periods of time. When he actually does move in for the kill, it’s over in an instant; and the same slo-mo shot of him tenderizing a corpse with his large blade is repeated more than once. Gruner spends so much time doing nothing it’s as if The Beast’s biggest crime is squatting in his own film.
Adding to the sense that this was a desperate attempt to patch together an unfinished film, what passes for a narrative is clumsily framed via flashbacks as apparent whistleblower Agent Karr recounts the story of The Beast’s (non)rampage in a super serious Jack Webb “just the facts” sort of way to a journalist in a small-town diner. Karr continuously feels the need to include completely irrelevant elements such as a bitchy verbal spat between a Congressional secretary and a Latina cleaning lady, AARP-approved fully-clothed Senatorial office sex set to jazzy music, small-town cops endlessly discussing a plane crash reported by an old rancher, parents back home feeling amorous while their children are off camping, stoner campfire sing-a-longs, small-town reporters talking about government cover-ups, ski-masked military commandos harassing the sheriff and campers, peeing in the woods, and the ever-important explanation of what beer kegs are and how they function.
The following is the actual dialogue spoken in voiceover as we witness a parade of teens heading up a hill carrying beer kegs:
“They had managed to procure some used beer kegs from a relative or friend that worked in a liquor store. Anyway, the beer kegs contained backwash or very limited amounts of alcohol. But still enough to get them drunk.”
In real life that reporter would probably be snapping his fingers in the veteran agent’s face requesting he stay focused while quietly wondering if perhaps the old guy is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
Let’s not forget the multiple coffee orders. I am on the edge of my seat with suspense. Will he take it black this time or with cream? Perhaps some pancakes to go with your coffee? Dialogue so naturalistic it’s like you’re actually in a Waffle House at 11AM watching the worst breakfast theater production of “My Dinner with Edward Snowden.”
We’re even treated to a lengthy scene of the potential victims’ parents gathered in somebody’s living room, feeling stonewalled by authorities, concerned about the fate of their children after hearing rumors of a plane crash out where they’re camping. They decide to take matters into their own hands and… are never seen or heard from again.
In fairness, you can’t really complain about scenes and subplots not having a pay-off when they often don’t even have a set-up.
After all this Agent Karr will then threaten the reporter’s life and the lives of his wife and child for possessing the top secret information that he just spent the movie providing him with. I don’t think Karr actually understands how whistleblowing works.
Poorly directed. Poorly acted. Inane dialogue frequently spoken directly into the camera in tight close-up. Action – what action? Night scenes lit so dark you feel like a glaucoma patient looking through night-vision goggles. Editing so random you can almost hear someone in the editing bay saying, “Add this here; no particular reason why, but it will pad a few more minutes of the run time.”
Sorry, folks. We couldn’t afford to film an action-packed ending so here’s stock footage of fighter jets and helicopters instead.
Why does a flashback include time and location supers at the bottom of the screen? But only for one particular scene in a movie that is almost all one extensive flashback.
You know that old coot everyone refers to as “old man Johnson”? Turns out when he phones the police, he actually introduces himself as “This is old man Johnson…”
If Regenerator wasn’t so relentlessly boring, it might have been a unintentional laugh riot of the Godfrey Ho variety.
Though I must say it does end on an astounding note. Again, I am not making this up.
Regenerator climaxes by going full On Deadly Ground. Remember how that Steven Seagal opus culminated with him blowing up an oil rig and then standing before the Alaskan state legislature scolding them about how the oil companies are destroying the environment and suppressing green technology? This movie about an unethical military experiment to create a psychopathic immortal super-soldier that then gets loose and kills innocent civilians boldly concludes with a black and white montage of patriotic imagery as the voice of Agent Karr lectures us on the importance of military readiness and the need for the central government to keep secrets from its populace in order to keep us safe, ending his speech with the I suppose comforting words “good night, sleep tight.”
I paid $3.99 to watch this.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
