Preservation

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source: Preservation

The writing sucks, the acting is mediocre at best, and this movie is predictable. How can 3 adults (including a former soldier) be so stupid?? Turn your back on someone you just beat in the head without knowing if they are unconscious?? A soldier would do this?? Unbelievable. Walk right up to your water that was stolen that is now hanging in a tree without suspecting a trap?? So dumb. Beat a guy up in a porta potty and then DON'T take the gun?? Brainless. Again, turning your back on someone you just fought with when you don't know if they are unconscious?? That is the epitome of stupidity. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time on this lame movie. Perhaps in the hands of a competent writer and director, it MIGHT be okay. But this one is just a waste of time and money.

If you decide to see "Preservation", there is a strong likelihood that you'll find the plot familiar. That's because it dates all the way back to 1924, with Richard Connell's story "The Most Dangerous Game". A few years later, the story would be brought to the big screen in the classic story by the same name, starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks. Since then, the story has been re-written time and time again--appearing in television shows (such as "Get Smart", believe it or not) and various movies. So, you cannot exactly give this film many points when it comes to originality. Like the old story, someone likes hunting. But instead of animals, their quarry is people. The only huge difference here is that you really don't know who the killer or killers are until the end of the film--whereas in the original story is was some twisted Russian aristocrat. Otherwise, the three victims spend more than half the film on the run--trying to avoid being someone's trophy. There really isn't a whole lot more to the story than this. On the plus side, the film is very tense. Some of the acting is pretty good and despite a small budget, the movie looks good. I also liked the identity of the hunters--this was an interesting twist. On the negative, the film isn't exactly fun to watch. After all, folks are getting butchered and there isn't a whole lot of subtlety about it. I also was irked by a cliché that I often see in films---someone disables their attacker and instead of finishing off the killer, they almost immediately turn their back on them so that they can be murdered. I don't know about you, but if someone is trying to kill me, I don't beat them up and then turn my back unless I am 110% sure that they are truly dead. Overall, I don't consider it a bad nor a good film but there isn't enough about it that would have me recommend you go see it. If you hate violent films, there's also another reason to avoid this one. I saw promise in this film. In the future, I'd like to see these actors and filmmakers do a more challenging project--something with more originality and which allow them to expand on their skills.

This contains serious spoilers so don't read it if you want to know nothing about the movie. So you have this ex military bad ass, his brother, and his brother's wife. They are going camping and wake up to find that they are being hunted by 3 kids. How the hell does the ex military guy get killed off after he brilliantly tracks these ppl, and actually almost kills one. He beats 1 up, turns his back on him to get a gun, and when he turns back around, the guy stabs and kills him. So not logical that an ex military guy would be smart enough to track the killer down but stupid enough to turn his back on the enemy. So whatever he dies, the brother dies, and the wife tries to escape. All of a sudden she goes from helpless pregnant doctor, to a trained killer. She tracks down the rest of the kids and kill them 1 by 1. At one point, she hits one with tire iron thing, and can't bring herself to finish the job and hit him in the head. Your husband and brother in law were just murdered, he tried to kill you, but you're going to let this kid live? So stupid. The best part of the movie, 1 kid is about to kill the girl. He literally thrusts the knife down to stab her and as soon as it almost punctures her stomach, his mom calls!!!! He answers and is like no mom I'm just at soccer practice. Dad didn't pick me up so I took my bike. I love you too! That was hilarious. Would have been an amazing movie if the military guy used his skills to track them all down and kill them before they could kill his fam.

Just comparing this to Eden Lake is an insult to yourself. But probably you don't have any knowledge of film so your forgiven for now... Here we have a director who's seen a couple of films and basically just picked pieces from them. The storyline is pretty basic, couple of people goes hiking, and end up being hunted for absolutely no reason what so ever. I really like "Surviving the game" with Ice T and Gary Busey because the hunters are real, and i get to know them before the action. Here they're basically just text-messaging, bicycling little punks. Completely nonsense, and there wasn't ONE scene where i actually felt engaged. Talk about wasting almost two hours when i could have been watching "Destroy all monsters" or something which would have given me MUCH more action and joy... By the way actors? POOR

Wow what an incredible movie. An absolutely absorbing and realistic journey into the world of 3 resilient and resourceful young Americans who find themselves matching wits with masked killers in an incredibly beautiful setting. OK seriously what a load of crap ! We are supposed to believe these idiots are asleep in the woods and wake to find the tent they were sleeping in is gone. As is there boots , cell phone and wait for it German shepherd. Mind you the brother saw them but still managed to get a cross painted on his forehead. My favourite part was when the brother who is a big guy smashes one of the masked kids head in with with a rifle but about 5 times. Somehow the masked kid stealthily gets up and coolly puts a knife through his chest. Let's ignore the fact he should be dead , brain dead or in a coma . I actually checked the genre at this point positive I was watching a sci fi and he was some kind of robot or terminator. The scene where the guy hides in the porta loo was ridiculous, why hide in a massive forest when there is a porta loo handy. Then he manages to escape through the roof unseen and land a few blows with a steel pipe he rips out of the toilet. I enjoyed the bike riding scenes though, some of the jumps looked cool and the masked killers looked to being enjoying themselves. This made me feel good . Please don't watch it you will feel dumber and angry.

I really don't get why makers of films such as these simply ruin it.. Its clear that this is a low budget movie but it had good camera work and decent actors so why ruin it with really bad character building and dialogue and then completely ruin it with completely implausible story events??? I really don't get..sigh!! It was simply ruined by something that normally could make a low budget film shine.. the story and characters! I will give you an example (and i will just ignore all the ridiculous impurities before or after) ..the main characters are supposedly completely lost in a nature park and when the couple (husband and wife) get their first contact (in a rangers cabin) with one of the psychos and at this point they don't know the dog was killed and hung, that the brother was killed nor if they are dealing with murderous psychos or just a bunch of kids that pulled a "lets steal their camping gear" prank on them. So the logic conclusion for them is to say farewell as the husband does the honorable and goes out of the front door to distract the psycho and the wife goes on a supposedly very veryyy veryyy long hike out of that park (they got lost remember?) and climb a treacherous steep cliff to reach the car (for which she just got a 2 second speed course in hot-wiring).. So the event is set in motion. Wife out the back window on her life changing track and husband out of the front door. Some scenes later of husband running and hiding and wife climbing we get to that conclusion. The husband is killed in really stupid conditions and the wife triumphantly reaches the end of her mount everest climb (which was well performed by the way!!) and lays down to have the final and last talk with her husband who speaks his final words.. We then for the first time see that it is actually 3 psychos on bikes and they of course go after her (this is all in continuity)...but what happens? Not even 30 seconds later the three bikers reach the location of the wife and manage to bike up the cliff and reach the wife.. ... ....? Huh? So the way out of the park is a 30 second bike ride on a very clear wide sand road? and this ladies and gentlemen sums up what ruins the movie as the whole movie is like this. Good camera work! Decent Actors! Horrid, HORRIDLY DUMB, script and story... what a shame! and what a waste!