Avengers Grimm

Title:  Avengers Grimm

Director: Jeremy M. Inman
Released: 2015
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Lauren Parkinson, Lou Ferrigno, Milynn Sarley, Marah Fairclough, Rieah Vanderbilt, Elizabeth Peterson, Kimo Leopoldo, Andrew E. Tilles, Justine Herron

Plot: Rumpelstiltskin (Van Dien) has escaped to the modern world using the magic mirror and now it’s up to Cinderella (Sarley), Sleeping Beauty (Fairclough), Snow White (Parkinson), Rapunzel (Vanderbilt) and Red Riding Hood (Peterson) to stop him, before he enslaves everyone on Earth.

 

Review:  So for some reason while sitting down to watch “Avenging Eagle” following a recommendation from Francisco “The Film Connoisseur” Gonzalez, but for some reason I zigged when I should have zagged and ended up for some reason stumbling into this offering from “The Asylum” whose production logo at the start should have been enough of a warning sign but alas here we are.

Seemingly taking a break from their usual shark related antics here instead they make their second stab at ripping off the Marvel Cinematic universe having previously given their stab at “Thor” with “Almighty Thor” and now turn their attention to “The Avengers” as they give them a fairy tale twist, replacing the comic book heroes with Fairy tale characters which honestly sounded like a pretty decent twist but alas wasn’t to be as like so many of “The Asylum” productions the construction never quite lives up to the premise.

Opening in the magical land of Once upon a time were the forces of good and evil are caught in a full scale conflict, with Van Dien’s Rumpelstiltskin hamming up his villainous side as he ruthlessly despatches the king of Once upon a time, while essentially giving us the fairy tale version of Loki with honestly not too shabby results, especially when both characters are known for being tricksters. From here we are then thrown disappointingly into the real world were things quickly fall apart.

While the main fairy tale princesses might be featured here, these aren’t your usual damsel in distress as what we get here are super powered warrior visions of these popular characters, with each having a power relating in some way to their story so hence Rapunzel uses her hair, Sleeping Beauty can put people to sleep and Snow White can use snow and ice….because you know she’s Snow white. The most interesting of the group though is Red Riding Hood here known simply as Red and who has been turned into a huntress obsessed with hunting down the humanoid version of the Wolf who here is less concerned with trying to disguise himself as Red’s granny and instead takes on the role of hired muscle for Rumpelstiltskin.

Once in the real world the plot quickly falls apart as it becomes unclear what exactly Rumpelstiltskin is trying to achieve for when the group arrive in the real world he has already taken over as the mayor of the city, while randomly turning those who oppose him into zombie like drones, which is something I don’t remember him ever doing in the original stories. By that same note I can’t remember him ever having a fondness for Nazi style uniforms which it seems under his regime are the style of choice, which bizarrely always seems to be the case when we see these kinds of adaptation much like “The Nutcracker 3D”. He also brings in a local gang boss called Iron John (Ferrigno) who soon lives up to his namesake when his body is turned into Iron, which essentially equates to Ferrigno playing a silver version of his Hulk alter-ego.

The cast are a mixed bunch with Van Dien and Ferrigno standing out as the better performances here, with Van Dien clearly having a blast playing the villain, while when it comes to the princesses they really are a mixed bunch of unknowns whose performances vary greatly as to be expected even if they are mainly watchable, its just more of a shame that they've not been given anything particular interesting or dramatic to get their teeth into, but hey this is an Asylum production so what were they expecting.

Action wise this film isn’t anything special thanks largely to none of the cast being especially fight trained it would seem with the two that are getting their own fight scene, which randomly takes place next to the LA river after a sudden smash cut which magically transports them from the building they were in front of prior to the fight in one of the most random scene jumps since “Sister Street Fighter” though its hard to say if this is more random than the silver hulk…I mean Iron John who charges into a fight only to slip on ice and fall out the side of the building, which  I guess only continues the theme of random fight scenes here while at the same time providing the same kind of head scratching logic that the guy falling through the floor had in the bell tower finale of “Batman”.

It’s hard to really say how this one could have been better as outside of a great premise and a couple of half decent performances this is pretty rotten throughout, especially when it attempts to take the story into the real world which was really the first warning sign of what would lie ahead. Out of the princesses though only Red is the one who really stands out and a character I would have liked to have seen been given her own film, especially if it was kept to a fantastic realm. What we have though here though instead is a grinding experience which fails at even the base level of casual entertainment as this is low even by the standard that we’ve come to measure any production from “The Asylum” ultimately this is one best skipped.