The Belko Experiment Review

<p>As I look back on the movies I&&num;8217&semi;ve watched over the years I can only think of a few office based titles that have truly caught my attention&period; First one was <em>Office Space<&sol;em> &lpar;1999&rpar;&comma; which was a hilarious comedy&period; Then <em>Bloodsucking Vampires<&sol;em> &lpar;2015&rpar;&comma; which was a bloody good horror&sol;comedy and now I can add this one to the list&period; <em>The Belko Experiment<&sol;em> &lpar;2017&rpar; is a killer mix of battle royal meets everyday office life&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The story goes something like this&period; Eighty Americans are working for a corporation overseas in Colombia&period; One morning&comma; after everyone is getting ready to start their day&comma; a mysterious voice comes over the intercom system and tells them &lpar;basically&rpar; they &&num;8220&semi;will&&num;8221&semi; participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed&period; How do you play the game&quest; Simple&comma; kill everyone or be killed&period; What do you win&quest; Your life&excl; That&&num;8217&semi;s right&comma; be the last living person in the building and you&&num;8217&semi;ve won your freedom&period; Now&comma; believe it or not&comma; there are a few more rules to the game&comma; but I don&&num;8217&semi;t want to spoil everything for you about a movie centering its story on killing your coworkers to survive&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127531" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127531" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127531 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;18223634&sol;The-Belko-Experiment-Still-1-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127531" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Belko Experiment&comma; BH Tilt<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I have to say&comma; the story that James Gunn came up with wasn&&num;8217&semi;t necessarily anything new&comma; but it hooked me because I&&num;8217&semi;m a fan of social experiments and I thought the director&comma; Greg McLean&comma; did a great job putting everything together&period; When it&&num;8217&semi;s all said and done&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re taking an eighty-nine-minute bloody ride that makes you witness what people are willing to do when they are put into an extreme situation&comma; like life or death&period; Like I said&comma; the story isn&&num;8217&semi;t anything new&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve seen characters &&num;8220&semi;forced to fight for survival&&num;8221&semi; before&comma; but what helps this one rise up a bit is that it has a good cast and &lpar;to be honest&rpar; some pretty gory kills&period; Something I liked about the story was&comma; yeah we knew there was a mysterious voice commanding the whole thing&comma; but they did a great job in keeping that voice a mystery till the end of the movie&period; Some films feel the need to hurry up and pull the curtain back for a big reveal and end up killing the mystery of the story&period; Also&comma; when you have a movie that is based on everyone dies&comma; it can be easy to forget how important it is to have good characters helping to tell the story and just have people run around offing each other&period; Yet&comma; Gunn continues to show his writing skills in The Belko Experiment by having a wide variety of characters scattered throughout the movie that helped deliver everything from action to quick bits of comedic relief&comma; which &lpar;in a good way&rpar; kind of surprised me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I really liked the pace of the film&period; You get a calm start as everyone is piling into work and once the mysterious voice hits the intercom&&num;8230&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s kickoff time&excl; Once the story is put into motion the movie turns into this no holds barred&comma; run for your life flick that&&num;8217&semi;s filled with plenty of action&comma; horror&comma; and thrills to keep your attention for the rest of the movie&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127533" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127533" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127533 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;18224305&sol;The-Belko-Experiment-Still-2-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127533" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Belko Experiment&comma; BH Tilt<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>On the cast side you get to see people like&colon; John Gallagher Jr&period; &lpar;<em>10 Cloverfield Lane<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Adria Arjona &lpar;<em>Emerald City&rpar;<&sol;em>&comma; Melonie Diaz &lpar;<em>Fruitvale Station<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Tony Godwyn &lpar;<em>Scandal<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; John C&period; McGinley &lpar;<em>Scrubs<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Sean Gunn &lpar;<em>Guardians of the Galaxy<&sol;em>&rpar; and Michael Rooker &lpar;<em>Guardians of the Galaxy<&sol;em>&rpar;&period; Sure the concept of the movie sounded interesting&comma; but the actual reason I decided to catch this one was that it had two of my favorite actors in it&comma; Rooker and McGinley&period; Both Rooker and McGinley always seem to pick fun or unique roles to play&period; However&comma; I can&&num;8217&semi;t say their roles really fit into that category this time around&period; I thought McGinley and Rooker did a good job&comma; but they played an average Joe character that was fighting for their lives&period; Gallagher Jr&period; was a solid choice for the main character and carried the weight of his role with no issue&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For those of you that are not a fan of gory films&&num;8230&semi; you may want to skip this one&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s rated R and has &lpar;tons of&rpar; violence&comma; language&comma; and gory kills&period; A majority of the time you have a front row seat as you watch someone meet their brutal demise&period; On that note&comma; I have to acknowledge the special effects that went into making this flick&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a lot of practical effects used&comma; which I&&num;8217&semi;m a fan of and they all looked great&excl; Now&comma; helping those scenes look as good as they did was also partly due to some really good cinematography work&comma; which was done by Luis David Sansans&period; Put the two together and the movie as a whole was seriously eye-catching&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127536" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127536" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127536 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;18224859&sol;The-Belko-Experiment-Still-3-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127536" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Belko Experiment&comma; BH Tilt<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>If you haven&&num;8217&semi;t seen <em>The Belko Experiment<&sol;em> yet and are wanting to&comma; then you&&num;8217&semi;re in luck&excl; The DVD and Blu-ray were released on June 27th&comma; 2017&period; Both the Blu-ray and the DVD share the same special features&comma; which are&colon; Rules of the Game&colon; The Secrets Behind The Belko Experiment&comma; Lee Hardcastle’s Survival Tips&comma; Deleted Scenes&comma; and Gallery&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; I really wasn&&num;8217&semi;t expecting much from <em>The Belko Experiment<&sol;em>&comma; but death and mayhem&period; As it turned out&comma; I ended up with a higher level of entertainment than I expected by the time it was over&period; So&comma; if you haven&&num;8217&semi;t seen this one yet and have the stomach for it&comma; then check it out&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;