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So, against my better judgment and sanity, I went to see Resident Evil, PT Anderson's attempt at bringing the Capcom videogame franchise to the cinema screen, and thought I'd write it up here. [SPOILERS] ahoy, by the way.
Thoughts?
It's pretty much fucking terrible. But it's terrible, say, in the way trashy, crap horror films are meant to be terrible, and not in the way I thought Episode II was terrible. It's also pretty faithful to the games' template: surreal locations, zombies, evil megacorporation, never enough ammo, magic boxes that teleport items - OK, well, you get the picture. Mila Jojovich stars, and really isn't too bad; Michelle Rodriguez from Girlfight is stuck with a character hastily renamed from Vasquez, and James Purefoy has a terrible American accent and, in the most terrifying shock of the movie, looks just like Tim Henman.
But yeah. It's terrible. That said, I really liked the bookeneding sequences - the opening (following the crappy sequence detailing the release of the T-Virus) is sub-Lynchian mystery, but quite stylish nontheless until the commandos arrive; the ending is again heavy on big white rooms that came out of nowhere, and the final shot of the movie is verging on the "really rather good". That's the only really rather good moment. The plot is pretty silly - commandos sent into a huge secret underground lab run by a sentient AI that's killed off all the scientists; of course, they don't realise it's killed everything because the virus has got out and turned everything to zombies, but hey. Jojovich plays Alice, who seems to reside in the mansion that hides the secret back entrance to the secret lab, but happens to have forgotten who she is or why she's there. But don't worry, her memory returns to her in a series of bleached flashbacks! And she discovers... that she's a military operative of some form who's trying to steal the T-Virus! Except she didn't have it! She finally realises precisely what this means in a sequence best subtitled "I Know Kung Fu". Like I said: it's all very silly.
The problem's in the pacing - it takes too long to get to the zombies, really. Because after all, anything with the words Resident Evil in the title is about zombies. And... they're alright. Some of the zombie makeup is quite good - the guy in the first big zombie fight with one eye is impressive - but in general Anderson relies on yellow face paint, daubs of blood and fast cutting to make it look good. The extras who got to play zombies, though, have GREAT fun - they jut arms out in comedy fashions, and the only disappointment is that they don't shout "BRAINS". Ever. Tut tut. The zombie dogs suck, though, and the big-evil-monster at the end (as you MUST have, in any video game or monster movie) is really, really badly done. Sometimes the CG's convincing, but the first time you see him, he looks exceptionally bad.
The dialogue is perhaps too good - there's nothing on a par with "You are the master of unlocking!", and no-one says "Let's split up, look for survivors, and get out!", but it has its moments and is bad enough to suffice. Effects are most disappointing - not just the licker, but also the laser-defence sequence (shamelessly stolen from Cube), irritating cuts to a 3D map, and a distinct lack of gore gore. I mean, it's bloody and lots of stuff gets shot... but for zombie movie it is very tame, I felt. It's also tame compared to the games - according to the IMDB, there were cuts to stop it getting an NC-17, and I don't know how much the British version's been cut, but I just felt it wasn't violent enough. That may sound dumb, and I don't advocate senseless violence - but if you're doing a film of Resident Evil, you've got to have quite a bit? I mean, there are NO SHOTGUNS in this film, and that just smacks as dumb: you're doing RE, it's a simple formula: shotguns, zombies, stupid sculpture. Similarly the film of Preacher. I just felt they wanted to get a film out the target audience (14-17 yr olds at a guess, and stupid ones at that) would be able to see. Soundtrack's also crap, btw - usual big suspense build ups, but this time with added ELECTRIC GUITARS because MARILYN MANSON worked on it. It's subtle as, well, the rest of the film.
If you can see it cheap, and like shitty horror films, RE fits the bill perfectly. It's worse than Mimic, and Mimic gave me some of the best laughs of my filmgoing career. It's funny, stupid, at times senseless (note that NO-ONE has the handwriting on the note), and of absolutely no consequence. Mila Jojovich is pretty, though, which is another of the thing's MINIMAL saving graces... so yeah. Absolute bag of shite, and thus entirely recommended. Though not for ANY more than a fiver. I'd hate to have paid seven quid to see this.
(And further asides if you've played the games: the final thing is a licker, not a tyrant, and so there's no bazooka, the mansion is similar to the first game, though the film clearly ends some time after the second's begun - note the state of the city. Also, the James Purefoy character goes off to become Nemesis. And the bit where Rodriguez goes to power up the train is pretty much remeniscent of the idiotic faffs that pass for "puzzles" in the series. It's surprisingly accurate, though annoyingly fetishistic of computers [bad], guns [bad], Jojovich [good], and shiny surfaces [what the hell]. The camera angles weren't nearly as creative as the games, though...) |
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