{"id":93066,"date":"2018-08-22T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=93066"},"modified":"2018-08-20T21:50:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T04:50:48","slug":"one-mans-trash-zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/one-mans-trash-zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops\/","title":{"rendered":"One Man&#8217;s Trash: Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are more zombie ninja movies on Prime Video than you&#8217;d probably expect. Just one, however, <em>versus<\/em>-es them against Black Ops.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The only thing Dillon (Adam T. Perkins) is looking to <em>versus<\/em> right now is his mortgage. The guy has no problem staring down death on a daily basis for the greater good, but there&#8217;s just not much of a payday in shadowy government ops. Meanwhile, Saisei Security offers an extravagant salary, medical, dental, <em>and<\/em> matches 401K contributions up to 8%. Dillon&#8217;s late night interview seems to be going gangbusters too. That is, until it&#8217;s interrupted by zombie ninjas and Black Ops.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5.jpg\" alt=\"No, I love YOU more!\" title=\"No, I love YOU more!\" width=\"660\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-93071\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5-150x62.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5-300x123.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5-768x315.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-5-1024x421.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a super-soldier experiment gone predictably wrong, Saisei Security is zombie ninja ground zero. Guess who&#8217;s been called in to clean up? You got it: Dillon&#8217;s former Black Ops squad. That means, he types with an audible gulp, <em>no witnesses<\/em>. In one corner, you have Dillon leading The Good Black Ops and trying to keep the body count to a minimum. In the other are The Bad Black Ops, hunting down the reanimation research and gunning down everyone in sight, living and dead. Then there&#8217;s a third corner fat-packed with zombie ninjas.<\/p>\n<p><em>Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops<\/em> knows what you signed up for, and sure enough, there&#8217;s a zombie ninja assault in the very first scene. No context. No exposition. Just <em>BAM!<\/em> \u2013 zombie ninjas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2.jpg\" alt=\"You got ninja in my zombie! You got zombie in my ninja!\" title=\"You got ninja in my zombie! You got zombie in my ninja!\" width=\"660\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-93068\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2-150x62.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2-300x123.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2-768x315.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-2-1024x421.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t craft some elaborately dense mythology. Characterization doesn&#8217;t run much deeper than Good Guy, Bad Guy, or Zombie Ninja. That&#8217;s really for the best. Dialogue isn&#8217;t this cast&#8217;s strong suit overall, and there are times when lines are delivered so excruciatingly slowly that it feels like a ploy to pad out the runtime. If you don&#8217;t glance down at your watch seven or eight times during Dillon&#8217;s job interview, you&#8217;re a better person than I am.<\/p>\n<p>The fight sequences more than make up for it. Needless to say, we&#8217;re not talking about dimwitted, shambling Romero zombies here. These undead ninjas retain the agility and martial arts prowess they&#8217;d wielded in life. Rotting or not, they still swing a mean katana. The movie&#8217;s titular warriors \u2013 both living and dead \u2013 are a force to be reckoned with. <em>Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops<\/em> doesn&#8217;t settle for a quick headshot or a sai to the midsection. These encounters always feel like an epic battle royale, showcasing the speed, power, and physicality of its performers. This is heightened by an emphasis on one-on-one battles, dispensing with the undead hordes typically associated with zombie cinema.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3.jpg\" alt=\"Little vials filled with knock-out drops\" title=\"Little vials filled with knock-out drops\" width=\"660\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-93069\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3-150x62.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3-300x123.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3-768x315.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zombie-ninjas-vs-black-ops-3-1024x421.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The seams in this Australian indie&#8217;s budget can&#8217;t help but show. The recording of the dialogue can sound harsh. The movie was apparently lensed on a DSLR, and perhaps that&#8217;s why the image is on the soft side and fast motion is prone to ghosting. It doesn&#8217;t really take full advantage of the zombie angle. Sure, they have red eyes and growl, but the only way their zombiedom <em>really<\/em> matters is that they&#8217;re basically invincible. They don&#8217;t feed on the living, and whatever&#8217;s reanimating them is not contagious. You could lose the word &#8220;zombie&#8221; in the title and have more of the squad&#8217;s shots miss, and hardly anything would have to be changed. For what it&#8217;s worth, <em>Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops<\/em> is a straight-up action movie and doesn&#8217;t really bother with horror at all, without any real gore to speak of. But hey, you wanted zombie ninjas and Black Ops, and the writing\/directing team of Kylie and Rody Claude deliver plenty of both.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are more zombie ninja movies on Prime Video than you&#8217;d probably expect. Just one, however, versus-es them against Black Ops.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_excerpt -->","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":93067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[10113,1546,10096,10259,165],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93066"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93157,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93066\/revisions\/93157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}