“Assault On Precinct 13” features a reasonable premise but it has horrible execution. John Carpenter (“Big Trouble In Little China”, “They Live”) directs this very disappointing film, which does looks cheap and just cannot deliver the action that you want. I found this to be a very bland and unremarkable experience.

A police officer (Austin Stoker “Horror High”) is sent to a closing L.A. precinct. He and several others, including two criminals, must defend the place from an army of gang members. It feels very similar to a zombie picture as the characters spent the majority of the movie trying to survive against wave after wave of enemies.

The characters in this movie are not remotely interesting. In that respect, I was also reminded of zombie movies such as “Dawn of the Dead” where I just did not care whether these individuals survived or not. The gang in the film have about as much personality as a bunch of zombies as I do not believe we ever hear any of them utter a word. I also did not care for the young girl near the beginning as she is only there for the movie to give us a needless shock.

“Assault On Precinct 13” contains action scenes that play more like shooting galleries than anything else as streams of bad guys step in front of gun barrels. The relatively simple premise is fine and there are a few moments that work but for the most part, I was bored by “Assault On Precinct 13”. This is not completely awful or anything like that but I find films such as this to be very unfulfilling. I do not get why many consider this to be a great movie and it is far from being Carpenter’s best work. I know this movie has legions of fans that will disagree with me but I cannot recommend this one.