It would've been difficult to place a whole movie inside a mall and make it interesting enough ... oh wait: Dawn of the Dead already did that and succeeded! Which might have been one if not the main inspiration for the video game "Dead Rising" (there have been a couple of "sequels" to the original game up to this moment).

Like the games you can assume that there will be more movies. Especially if they are successful. The two main characters here are very good looking, which is "dealt" with very early on. A nice touch even if an obvious one. The action is more than decent and the story moves along nicely. Aspects from the game (building weapons McGuyver style) are also present ...

Chase (Jesse Metcalfe) is a reporter caught in a quarantine during a zombie outbreak. A drug keeps people from turning into zombies with a daily dose. Suddenly the drug has become defective and a free for all ensues as Chase teams up with Virginia Madsen and Meghan Ory as they attempt to survive zombies, gangs, and the government who want to fire bomb the zone.

This is a very funny film as Frank West (Rob Riggle) provided us with frank survivor commentary to the dismay of his host. The film showed no signs it was based on a video game. There was a nice personal touch when Madsen, who has lost a daughter ,makes a smiley face PB&J sandwich for Chase. If she had just cut the crusts off.

Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

DEAD RISING: WATCHTOWER is the film version of the popular DEAD RISING video games, which are basically action-focused rip-offs of DAWN AND THE DEAD and its ilk. How will this niche film fit into a genre already overcrowded with awful low budget zombie flicks?

The answer is that it sits somewhere around in the middle in terms of quality. This is neither the best or the worst of its genre; it has highs and lows, good stuff and bad. I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first: there's a massively overlong running time which means that a lot of the material is long-winded and repetitive; action films like this should be short and snappy, not drag on interminably. The writing is only average and the characterisation is rather dull.

On the plus side: the cinematography is a step up from your garden variety gut-muncher. There's one stand-out tracking shot which takes place around the halfway mark and involves mucho zombie killing set in and around a school bus. It's a brilliant scene and a shame the rest of the film can't match it. For the rest of the running time, we have bland leading man Jesse Metcalfe (DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES) running away from zombies and evil biker gangs, and Virginia Madsen (CANDYMAN) cameoing as a grieving mother. It doesn't add up to very much in the end, but it passes the time if a time waster is what you're looking for.