Review of Devil's Playground (2010) by David F — 04 Jul 2012

Devil's Playground (Mark McQueen, 2010).

Devil's Playground, the debut feature from director Mark McQueen (The Only Way Is Essex and scriptwriter Bart Ruspoli (you may remember him in front of the camera in Band of Brothers) is unapologetic 28 Days Later... fanfic that, let's face it, is probably only worth watching if you're a fan of one or more of the principals. The thing is, I can't imagine anyone not being a fan of at least one of the principals, a number of whom have made their mark in both British and American movies and television over the past decade: Danny Dyer (Doghouse), Colin Salmon (Resident Evil, MyAnna Buring (The Descent), Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon), Jaime Murray (Dexter), Craig Fairbrass (Prime Suspect 2)... the list goes on. It's fun, it's predictable, it's well-acted (though as a number of reviews have noted, the actors are doing they best they can with a watery script), it's a pretty much perfect piece of turn-your-brain-off entertainment.

Which would normally be everything I have to say about this movie, but I want to point out one interesting thing that may have affected my judgment (other than my being an unapologetic Danny Dyer fanboy). I've read a number of comments on the film that mention parkour. I didn't even notice, in the same way I didn't notice the bullet-time sequences in The Matrix until it was pointed out to me a couple of years later that this was, in fact, A Thing. Unlike The Matrix's bullet-time, which seems to have made a lot of people say âwow, that's coolâ? to a movie with an utterly generic script and lackluster-at-best acting, Devil's Playground's parkour seems to have garnered the opposite reaction. And unfortunately, my mentioning it means that if you now go off and watch the movie you're not going to be able to not notice it. But at least you'll be prepared. In any case, just turn your brain off and have fun with it. ***.