Director: James MacPherson.
Writers: Jason Faller, Anne K. Black, Kynan Griffin, and Justin Partridge.
Archstone Distribution will distribute the horror action comedy Orcs! August 31st, 2011 and this is not a modern re-telling of Lord of the Rings, but more of an exercise of the funny bone. Adam Johnson plays Cal, a burnt out forest ranger. His days on the job are numbered, as a urine test will soon prove his marijuana usage. Enter in a whole slew of armored hellions, and you have a mix of action comedy, with a flashback or two of Tolkien.
You know you are in the genre of a silly comedy, when a forest ranger is found at the bottom of a campground toilet. Only his head remains above the excrement and soon, the groans begin. Cal’s straight-laced sidekick Hobart (Maclain Nelson) adds in some laughs, as his obsessive-compulsive disorder over a scribbling notepad gets him and his pals into bad situations time and again. Together, Cal and Hobart seem to cause more trouble than they solve.
Add in another character, only know as the “Pee Guy,” and you can check the analysis at the door, in favour of simple comedic enjoyment. The “Pee Guy” is a mean SOB with a gun and he is also good at holding warm, stained samples of rangers’ piddle. Viewers will quickly figure out that a character known as the “Pee Guy” is shortly to find a medieval arrow, or demonic hack-and-slash, from a recently freed group of savages.
One of the elements that made this reviewer grin was the over-sized caterpillar growing on character Cal’s face. His mustache harkens back to the golden age of film, where tie dyed clothes were the rage and saying “groovy” was the norm. Somehow, actor Johnson pulls of the look, while other characters see him as simply an: “idiot” (Orcs!).
Orcs! is a silly fantasy adventure set in Balancing Rock National Park (without an actual balancing rock) and fans of the silly will enjoy a few laughs at Archstone’s latest. Your wait will not be long, as this film is slated for release shortly. In the meantime, have a chuckle at the trailer below, as Ranger Cal bumbles his way through an Orcapocalypse!
Overall: 6.75 (some dubbing, movie cut-out a little early, good action, intense climax, just silly fun).
