The Films of Uwe Boll, Vol. 1: The Video Game Movies by Mat Bradley-Tschirgi
Moon Books (September 2019)
142 pages; $9.99 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Anton Cancre
You read that right, folks. A book on the films of someone who has been often called one of the worst directors of our times. And it is only Volume One? They are making more? Someone has to watch 11 Uwe Boll films and then watch more of them?
Yup, and that person is Mat Bradley-Tschirgi. May some Being bless him, because this feels like a job of the damned right here.
I expected a bit more out of this book than I got. I don’t know…some snark or some weird in-depth analysis that shows it all to be part of some grand design piecing together the wisdom of the universe in the guise of trite, largely boring films. What we get is in-depth, blow-by-blow summaries of the films with some rare unknown tidbit or comparison between different cuts but hardly any commentary on the work.
MB-T clearly enjoys the work of Uwe Boll, going so far as to call one of the jokes in Postal “A masterstroke even O Henry would be jealous of.” However, the discussion of the films is dry and passionless, even when it is overflowing with absurd praise. It’s all just too cold and drab.
I’m not quite sure who this book is aimed at, as fans don’t need the long summaries and curious onlookers won’t get drawn to them in this detached style of discussion and nobody will be happy with the lack of either analysis or peeks behind the curtain. I hate to outright pan a book, but I just can’t figure out who would want this one.
