Reel Advice from the Video Store Guy
By Steve Anderson
July 1st, 2016

Dead Rising: Endgame

Dead Rising Endgame
***
Crackle
Directed by Pat Williams
Written by Tim Carter, Michael Ferris
Starring Jesse Metcalfe, Keegan Connor Tracy, Dennis Haysbert
NR
96 mins
2016

Here's a bit of a shock for you; remember when we covered "Dead Rising: Watchtower" out here? Well, as it turns out, they took a look at the market and said there was room for a sequel. Thus, we have "Dead Rising: Endgame," a title that shows us there's almost always room for sequels.

"Dead Rising: Endgame" takes us back out for another romp with Chase, Jordan, and some of the rest to attempt to unearth the mysterious government conspiracy that may well be connected to the random outbreaks of zombies that just kind of keep showing up throughout the world. This time, it's about to get much worse as the combined efforts of the army and Phenotrans--the company who developed the Zombrex drug that's keeping large portions of the world from turning into walking dead flesh-eaters--are about to engage in a mass killing project.

The good news about a movie like "Dead Rising: Endgame" is that it really doesn't matter how bad it is. If it's even vaguely watchable, it's still going to be worth it, because it's currently streaming for free on Crackle. The better news is that the movie will not be unwatchable. Once again, Dennis Haysbert does a fine job, and he's far from alone here in turning in a reasonably sound performance.

It's not all it might have been, sadly; the Dead Rising series has two great features to it: amateur mechanical engineering and a raftload of zombies needing to be re-killed. Though there will be plenty of amateur mechanical engineering on hand--you won't believe what can be duct-taped to what to create a really nasty-looking piece of hardware--the zombie quotient on this one will be surprisingly slim until toward the last few minutes. I've always been leery of zombie movies that don't have a lot of zombies, and though this proves only a temporary problem, it's still a problem.

The ending is nicely taut if a bit incoherent. It still works reasonably well, though, and it makes me wonder if this series can go anywhere else.

There are no special features on this one as it's available via streaming video. Do yourself a favor while you're on Crackle, though; there's a lot to watch out there and large portions of it are free. I find it's a badly underused source against Netflix and Hulu, and if things like this help call attention to it, then it's worthwhile.

"Dead Rising: Endgame" delivers another sound entry in this growing franchise, and I'm happy for it. Capcom hasn't had a lot of successes lately in gaming, and Dead Rising has been one of them. Anything that keeps this series alive and making exciting material like this is well worth the ride.