FP 4EVZ (2023) [XYZ movie review]

FP 4EVZ is the thrilling fourth installment in a franchise that will make people go THIS IS THE FOURTH ONE? Yes, dear readers, while the world wasted away to Marvel Universes, Rian Johnson murder mysteries and whatever the hell is going on at Warner Brothers, The FP expanded!

Quickie review time for people who don’t like it when Troy rants

FP 4EVZ is the fourth film in the visually intriguing FP series. Crowd fundraised by fans alongside FP3: Escape from Bako, the end result is a loving tribute to the power of gaming, low budget genre fare and auteuristic vision. Celebrate one man’s singular vision to turn what started as a DDR lovefest into something that is far greater than one could imagine. Behold FP 4EVZ!

Now, on with the FP 4EVZ talk

I don’t know how many people remember The FP, but I loved it. Drafthouse Films had this ability to pluck obscure films out of the ether and give them proper home video and related releases. When they crapped out and the bones of them became NEON, things changed. That’s the burden of prestige fare, it causes you to lose track of the genre winners.

The FP series has a pretty decent fanbase. However, I’m a casual fan of the first movie at best. In fact, these review of FP 4EVZ got delayed, because I purposefully sought out 2 and 3 to watch before trying to bring myself back into this world. The big post apocalyptic push among other details would not have made sense to me if I was still going off my old Blu-ray of The FP.

What we accept and what we don’t with FP 4EVZ.

To say I have a hard time with the idea of game warriors is silly. After all, if you’ve watched genre film for any length of time, you become trained to accept a lot. So, if alien ducks are taking over Earth and you’ve got to game dance your way out of it? Who am I to argue? Match Point asked you to believe that Scarlett Johansson could play tennis.

JTRO is a fascinating lead and I enjoy what he brings to the FP movies and the underseen All Superheroes Must Die. However, it’s not super far away from what we saw coming out of Italy circa 1979-1992. It’s a lot of action with violence tendencies in genre drapery making the best out of the FX available to me. Sometimes, you get Fulci and other times you get Bruno Mattei. Still, you make the best out of it and roll forward.

While reworking my thoughts, I discovered that friend of site Daniel Baldwin was one of the fundraising backers for the 3rd film and FP 4EVZ. Being a non fan, but not a hater of The FP movies, I asked him what he dug about the films. He waxed on more poetically than I could, as I kept watching FP 4EVZ hoping for that light to shine on me.

Cut the Chris Claremont routine and tell us if you liked FP 4EVZ

Honestly, I did. That being said, it will probably a bit of time before I watch it again. Many younger viewers are going to take issues with the FX, the subject matter and overall tone. But, they get mad at tweets and can’t understand basic human interactions. So, we might be asking a lot for them to sit down and enjoy a film fantasy that is fantastical for the sake of being fantastical.

While I would like to see more movies like this, remember that first and foremost…I’m an arthouse snob. I still have a 4K UHD copy of The Last Emperor sitting untouched like a virgin upon thy dusty media cabinet. So, what about FP 4EVZ earned my attention away from 4K Bertolucci films?

For those of us that study the full film history and not the canon approved by the current tastemakers, you come to realize that quality cinematic experiences come in all forms. While I didn’t find JTRO’s fight to be as compelling as I did in The FP, it still give me brushes of Eurocentric grindhouse fare of past decades. Watch it now and be cool before some trendy zoomer makes a TikTok and spoils it.

FP 4EVZ comes to Digital and VOD on February 23rd