Paintball (2009) Reviews

• Hard to believe they even make straight to video films this bad anymore

  davideo-22010-05-25

  STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning The premise behind this abysmal action thriller has a group of people going for a good old bit of paint ball, only to find themselves really fighting to stay alive as a barrage of real bullets are fired at them. But the characters are never developed or explored in any way, so it's impossible to care about any of them. Needless to say, there is no air of tension or suspense whatsoever, and the acting is so bad none of them have any life anyway, as though just running around shouting and screaming incoherently at each other gives them any life. Not that there was anything special to see there anyway, just the usual generic stereotypes typical for this genre. And here we have yet another film that hasn't learned the modern trend of shaking the camera around and darkening the lens is an off putting and annoying one rather than an endearing one. One to flee all round. *

• Embarrassingly Bad

  LDLucas2010-01-14

  First off, Paintball bets the farm that the viewer has never seen a movie before. If this is your first movie, then you're in luck, as it only gets better from here. Paintball's storyline is a combination of recycled, yet shockingly under-developed, themes and settings that attempts to create an air of mystery and horror by keeping the viewer in the dark. This is respectable approach, however, nothing ever makes sense in the movie… and not in the cool Donnie Darko way. It's like a bunch of 8th graders wrote a story in a half hour and never even bothered even coming for a reason why any character in the movie acts the way they do or any situation in the movie would be plausible. You can tell a movie stinks if the only way to move the story forward is for the characters to do the opposite of what any rationale or irrational human would do. Example 1A: People are dying and everyone still walks around inexplicably yelling with their paint guns cocked and loaded. I would think that even the dimmest bulb would realize that staying quite would be to their benefit. Second, the movie is made horribly as well. You can tell that no shots were thought out ahead of time. The camera will follow someone, they'll drop a helmet, the camera will linger on the helmet, and the helmet will never be heard from again. I can see who a little misdirection can help a movie, but after repeatedly seeing useless visuals, you start to get the feeling that they were just letting the camera roll with hopes of making it work in the editing room. Also, the special effects are terrible. Every effect looks like it had a maximum budget of $5. I can watch a horrible movie and laugh along with the best of them (see American Ninja 3). However, they took so many short cuts in this movie, that there is nothing remotely redeemable about it. You can surely finding something to disappoint you that isn't 85 minutes long. This gets two stars only because I've seen Gourmet Zombie Chef from Hell.

• Game over, already!

  Coventry2012-07-20

  I don't exactly know anymore why I thought that "Paintball" could easily have been a cool and exciting survival/slasher movie when I rented it… Maybe because I went paintballing with a group of friends recently and you immediately link this game to adrenalin-rushing action and sportive kicks? Or perhaps because I have a tremendous weakness for equally obscure and similarly themed flicks from the 1980's, like "TAG: The Assassination Game", "Master Blaster" and "The Zero Boys"? All these flicks share the same plot, namely that a dim-witted but fun shootout game turns deadly when one or more participants start using real ammunition. None of them are to be considered genre classics, or even remotely great films for that matter, but they nonetheless provided pure and unpretentious entertainment. Entertainment is also exactly what I wanted to get out of "Paintball", but apparently that was too much to ask for … It's truly a dire effort, with an utterly dumb and implausible plot, and sadly also severely lacking gore, brutality and fast-paced suspense/excitement. "Paintball" is a European production – more specifically a Spanish one – and the creators obviously wanted to further exploit the worldwide impression that ALL Europeans are psychopathic butchers with a fetish for torturing Americans. Hence we're getting some kind of ridiculous mixture between the aforementioned 80's titles and Eli Roth's "Hostel". A bunch of people are in the back of a shaky truck, heading out to the remote Redwoods area and preparing themselves for a large-scaled and allegedly super-deluxe paintballing contest. Upon their first confrontation with another team already, it becomes clear that they are all defenseless puppets in much more sadistic and profitable game, run from an illegal control room somewhere in the city. It's kind of a dumb twist, if you ask me, but even more imbecilic than the plot are the totally bland and unremarkable characters. Each and every single member in the group of protagonists irritated me enormously, what with their whining and selfishness, and I literally wished for none of them to survive the ordeal. Director Daniel Benmayor also thought it would be a good idea to film all the killings from POV angle and through a sort of unclear brown camera filter. Result: the killings are hectically shot and extremely dull. There's nearly not enough bloodshed or cruelty for die-hard horror fanatics, let alone the admirers of the nowadays popular torture porn genre. The film doesn't take enough advantage of the sublime forestry filming locations and we don't learn enough about the actual villains that are running the show. "Paintball" a complete failure across all departments.

• Possibly the worst movie I've ever seen.

  freydis-e2015-08-09

  I'm reviewing this as a curiosity, possibly the worst I've ever seen. It's not one of those so bad it's good, more so bad that, yawn, who could ever care? So what are the problems? No story – but that's not unusual in a film like this. No characters – can also happen in this kind of softish horror, but there's usually someone, even if badly acted and paper-thin, to latch onto. Not here. Makes no sense – frequently a problem in horror of all kinds and here it's made worse by the fact that there's absolutely nothing to hook you in and pull you along. Unexplained stuff happens all the time - example: why not take the car with keys in it and how did we get from there to railroad tracks? Maybe if I'd cared even a little bit, I'd have paid more attention and just maybe made a bit more sense of it. So what does happen? People run around a lot, rarely for any sensible reason. They shout a lot, usually all at the same time so you can't tell what any of them are shouting. The women (and only them) scream, gasp and sob a lot – not that unreasonable when nasty stuff starts up, but I suspect plenty of men would do the same in the unlikely event that real life could ever be remotely like this. This movie is a perfect 1. There's nothing here worth seeing, the kind of thing I never get to see because I walk out/ switch channels/ throw the DVD in the garbage if even the opening 5-10 minutes are this bad. This time I made myself watch, waiting for something interesting to happen. It never did and I wasted 90 minutes of my life. Don't make the same mistake.

• Manhunt among participants of a paintball game , including moving atmosphere by means of shaky camera

  ma-cortes2017-02-24

  This exciting film contains stunning fights scenes and chases that illuminate the full-blown struggles with a plethora of engaging set pieces on the combats in which the action runs here and there . Exciting manhunt set against spectacular scenery in which a bunch of young urban workaholics sign up for a weekend of paintballing to have some adventure and to the adrenaline begins to flow . The team (Brendan Mackey , Jennifer Matter , Patrick Regis , Neil Maskell , Iaione Perez , Claudia Bassols) is split into two groups , each player is equipped with supplies to last the weekend , a paintball weapon , paint bullets and maps . The winners will be the team that wipes out their opponents and completes the circuit . As the snipers pin them down in a hail of paint . But the adrenaline-filled entertainment soon turns into a merciless chase , in which they become the prey and the hunter shoots live ammunition not paint . It is no longer a game ; but then commands the strongest law , and when rules have changed it turns into a lethal pursuit . Later on , the battle-hardened participants take on each other , including deadly traps , being ambushed , and killed one by one . Hunted down like prey in a deadly game , the teams face a desperate struggle for survival . There's nothing like a brush with death to make you feel alive . Bloody and violently flick with overwhelming fights and nice production values set in deep forest , ravines , caves and obstacle-ridden trekking paths . It is reasonably well paced and turns out to be a long roller-coaster pursuit and relentless hunt . It is packed with noisy action , gritty adventure , thrills , violent shootouts and spectacular outdoors . The strong confrontation in which only rules the law of the jungle , is set against strong environment , mountains and hazardous trails . The movie has great action sequences well staged with stylish and vitality , thrills , and results to be entertaining but repetitive . Cameraman photographs a stirring atmosphere by means of shaky camera over shoulder and videotape . Several action scenes are outstanding with spectacular action images and thrilling fights . It also results to be surprisingly gory , including , stabbing , slitting , writhing in agony , along with a handful of extremely violent and breathtakingly gory scenes . It's a thunder stuff with an unknown cast , they spend most of it running through the forests , hills , mountains , being tracked , chased and escaped . Unfortunately, on small house screens much of the splendor will be lost , to be seen on big screen. Colorful cinematography by Juán Azpiroz , reflecting splendidly impressive landscapes filmed in mountains of Castellterçol , Marganell , Collbató , Aiguamúrcia, Barcelona, Arnes , Tarragona, Catalonia , where the filmmaker also shot ¨El Bruc¨ . Furthermore , it displays an atmospheric and thrilling musical score by Xavier Capellas . The flick was finely produced by the chairman of Filmax Productions , Julio Fernandez along with his brother Carlos Fernandez as executive producer , they're two successful producers and experts on terror genre , producing a lot of hits , such as ¨The machinist¨, ¨Rec ¨1¨, 2¨ and ¨3¨ , ¨Fragiles¨, ¨Darkness¨, ¨El perfume¨ , ¨The nun¨ . The motion picture was professionally directed by Daniel Benmayor , though has some flaws and gaps . He is a good professional , a nice filmmaker who has directed a few films as ¨Bruc , El Desafío¨ (2010) and has been hired by Hollywood , where he has realized ¨Tracers¨ with Taylor Lautner and Marie Avgeropoulos . This ¨¨Paintball¨ is rated 5.5/10 , passable .