Welcome to the Dead Parade #4: Resident Sequel Update
As promised on September 11, 2008, I will finally give my readers an update on the state of the Residents.
Since I reviewed Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse at the GodsOfMelee Yahoo! Group on December 30, 2004, I have developed an appreciation for the series that wasn't there at the time, when I had to wait between films. And since the first publication of "Resident Sequel," two more have joined the franchise, with a fifth installment on the way (trailer can be found here), there's no time like the present for a Just the Ticket Update. On with the show!
The Dead Parade marches on, touching on my freshman blog's video game theme with review of the four Resident Evil films so far. The Fifth Element's Milia Jovovich is a RE original character (who had not been featured in any of the games up to that point) named Alice, a chief security officer in the Umbrella Corporation's Hive research facility.
Resident Evil: When a spy infiltrates the hive and releases the deadly T-virus, the Red Queen defense computer goes nuts and everyone in the Hive gets turned into a zombie. A team of commandos must now rescue the amnesia-suffering Alice, shut down the Red Queen, kill all the zombies and mutants before they reach the surface, and escape with their lives. The Kick-Ass-Hero-With-Amnesia concept is a bit unoriginal--see The Bourne Identity, The Matrix, The Medallion, etc. The laughs are few and far between, and usually associated with shock at seeing someone sliced and diced by a laser grid or getting surprised by a monster. The scares are equally infrequent and misplaced so that nothing happens when a scare is expected and no fear is felt when the unexpected pops up. I often got a sense of Resident Evil being riddled with holes, none of which were created by bullets. Also, Milia Jovovich is hot, but with her 50% wardrobe (half-dressed half the time and mostly naked all the time) and the stupidass names that Capcom came up with for stuff (STARS, Red Queen, The Hive, Umbrella, T-virus, Nemesis, and--worst of all, I think--Raccoon City) puts Resident Evil on the borderline between a very cheap action cartoon and a very expensive porno. Good action, good transition between films, average humor, and sub-par horror with blood and shit everywhere else.
D
Resident Evil Apocalypse: Almost a mirror image of Dawn of the Dead, but with a few cheesy, overblown, funhouse changes. Alice is joined by STARS agent Jill Valentine and has been infected with the T-virus, giving her Matrix-like moves with which to whup on a new larger horde of zombies, mutant dogs, lickers, and her fellow infected survivor from the last RE film, Nemesis (human form portrayed in the first RE by Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius). As in Dawn of the Dead, the action takes place above ground, there is a scattered group of survivors, and there is a comic relief sniper. Better action and comedy than the first, some of the holes created in RE get filled in, and the spoiler transition into Extinction is well planned. A little too long, a little unoriginal, but a slight improvement over the first.
C+
Having done some research into the Resident Evil Universe, I have come to recognize most of the characters by name, which has helped develop my appreciation for the film series since reviewing the first two films in 2004. The third installment managed to deliver on the promise made at the end of Apocalypse.
Resident Evil Extinction: The nuking of Raccoon City failed to contain the spread of the T-Virus, which has gone global in the course of a few months. Alice, Carlos (Oded Fehr, Charmed), and LJ (Mike Epps) return, joined this time by Claire (Ali Larter, Heroes) and an armored caravan of survivors trying to cross the Nevada desert on their way to sanctuary in Alaska. But as usual, zombies, infected wildlife (the crows hinted at in the first Resident Evil finally make their presence known), and the film's main baddie, Tyrant, stand in their way. Alice's new psychic powers are made good use of--enough to be helpful but not so much that the movie becomes boring--and the frequent malfunctioning of her control program makes things interesting as parallel stories weave together toward yet another impressive spoiler ending. By the way, where the hell is Jill Valentine?
B-
We find out the answer to that question by the end credits of Resident Evil Afterlife: The movie opens with some self-referential commentary on plastic cinema; on the streets of Tokyo, Japan, mass-produced mannequins walk about in their daily lives, but then dissolve into unique flesh as we quickly learn that some of the masses are Undead.
Panning underground, we find that director Paul W.S. Anderson has once again made good on his spoiler promises. Alice and her clone army have stormed the local Umbrella compound, and are finally getting full mileage out of her T-Virus powers (thankfully including an impressive psychic display, the fourth since the end of Apocalypse). Unfortunately the clones were disposed of too quickly, and thanks to a sneak attack by Albert Wesker (Diary Of the Dead's Shawn Roberts), Alice is left without her powers. How can a movie be so impressive and so underwhelming at the same time?
After finishing her business with Umbrella, Alice makes her way to Alaska, which proves to be deserted until she is attacked by a brainwashed Claire Redfield wearing a weird crab-like device (the same as we see Jill wearing in the end credits' spoiler).
The two fly to a Los Angeles prison where they meet Luther (Boris Kodjoe), Bennett (Kim Coates from Sons Of Anarchy), and Claire's estranged brother Chris (ironically, Chris, whom we first meet locked in a jail cell, is played by Prison Break star Wentworth Miller).
Standing between them and the Arcadia (an Umbrella research ship claiming to be the infection-free town in Alaska) is the usual city-wide horde of zombies, mutants, and requisite big-bads (of which there are two this time: a nearly indestructible executioner-type mutant called the Axeman, and the hyperspeedy, red-eyed Wesker).
The new four-jawed zombie effects were cool (especially the split-headed Cerberus dogs), and the Axeman fight sequence was really well-done (perhaps the best in the movie, even including the opening sequence mentioned above). But as the first film in the series to use 3D, it didn't succeed as well as it could have. Comparing Afterlife to a 3D success story like Hugo or Avatar is like comparing Star Wars to other sci-fi space adventures of its time: they attempt to use smaller budget effects to create something on a larger scale that winds up looking like, well, a bunch of plastic mannequins floating on a green-screen.
The 3D effects here amount to little more than slow-motion close-ups, obvious wire-work, and the occasional computer-generated weapon or shard of glass flying sluggishly toward the camera. The result is cool enough, but not always good enough.
C
Stay tuned next issue for a unique take on the zombie genre, courtesy of Just the Ticket and After Dark Films.
Since I reviewed Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse at the GodsOfMelee Yahoo! Group on December 30, 2004, I have developed an appreciation for the series that wasn't there at the time, when I had to wait between films. And since the first publication of "Resident Sequel," two more have joined the franchise, with a fifth installment on the way (trailer can be found here), there's no time like the present for a Just the Ticket Update. On with the show!
Resident Evil: When a spy infiltrates the hive and releases the deadly T-virus, the Red Queen defense computer goes nuts and everyone in the Hive gets turned into a zombie. A team of commandos must now rescue the amnesia-suffering Alice, shut down the Red Queen, kill all the zombies and mutants before they reach the surface, and escape with their lives. The Kick-Ass-Hero-With-Amnesia concept is a bit unoriginal--see The Bourne Identity, The Matrix, The Medallion, etc. The laughs are few and far between, and usually associated with shock at seeing someone sliced and diced by a laser grid or getting surprised by a monster. The scares are equally infrequent and misplaced so that nothing happens when a scare is expected and no fear is felt when the unexpected pops up. I often got a sense of Resident Evil being riddled with holes, none of which were created by bullets. Also, Milia Jovovich is hot, but with her 50% wardrobe (half-dressed half the time and mostly naked all the time) and the stupidass names that Capcom came up with for stuff (STARS, Red Queen, The Hive, Umbrella, T-virus, Nemesis, and--worst of all, I think--Raccoon City) puts Resident Evil on the borderline between a very cheap action cartoon and a very expensive porno. Good action, good transition between films, average humor, and sub-par horror with blood and shit everywhere else.
D
Resident Evil Apocalypse: Almost a mirror image of Dawn of the Dead, but with a few cheesy, overblown, funhouse changes. Alice is joined by STARS agent Jill Valentine and has been infected with the T-virus, giving her Matrix-like moves with which to whup on a new larger horde of zombies, mutant dogs, lickers, and her fellow infected survivor from the last RE film, Nemesis (human form portrayed in the first RE by Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius). As in Dawn of the Dead, the action takes place above ground, there is a scattered group of survivors, and there is a comic relief sniper. Better action and comedy than the first, some of the holes created in RE get filled in, and the spoiler transition into Extinction is well planned. A little too long, a little unoriginal, but a slight improvement over the first.
C+
Having done some research into the Resident Evil Universe, I have come to recognize most of the characters by name, which has helped develop my appreciation for the film series since reviewing the first two films in 2004. The third installment managed to deliver on the promise made at the end of Apocalypse.
Resident Evil Extinction: The nuking of Raccoon City failed to contain the spread of the T-Virus, which has gone global in the course of a few months. Alice, Carlos (Oded Fehr, Charmed), and LJ (Mike Epps) return, joined this time by Claire (Ali Larter, Heroes) and an armored caravan of survivors trying to cross the Nevada desert on their way to sanctuary in Alaska. But as usual, zombies, infected wildlife (the crows hinted at in the first Resident Evil finally make their presence known), and the film's main baddie, Tyrant, stand in their way. Alice's new psychic powers are made good use of--enough to be helpful but not so much that the movie becomes boring--and the frequent malfunctioning of her control program makes things interesting as parallel stories weave together toward yet another impressive spoiler ending. By the way, where the hell is Jill Valentine?
B-
We find out the answer to that question by the end credits of Resident Evil Afterlife: The movie opens with some self-referential commentary on plastic cinema; on the streets of Tokyo, Japan, mass-produced mannequins walk about in their daily lives, but then dissolve into unique flesh as we quickly learn that some of the masses are Undead.
Panning underground, we find that director Paul W.S. Anderson has once again made good on his spoiler promises. Alice and her clone army have stormed the local Umbrella compound, and are finally getting full mileage out of her T-Virus powers (thankfully including an impressive psychic display, the fourth since the end of Apocalypse). Unfortunately the clones were disposed of too quickly, and thanks to a sneak attack by Albert Wesker (Diary Of the Dead's Shawn Roberts), Alice is left without her powers. How can a movie be so impressive and so underwhelming at the same time?
After finishing her business with Umbrella, Alice makes her way to Alaska, which proves to be deserted until she is attacked by a brainwashed Claire Redfield wearing a weird crab-like device (the same as we see Jill wearing in the end credits' spoiler).
The two fly to a Los Angeles prison where they meet Luther (Boris Kodjoe), Bennett (Kim Coates from Sons Of Anarchy), and Claire's estranged brother Chris (ironically, Chris, whom we first meet locked in a jail cell, is played by Prison Break star Wentworth Miller).
Standing between them and the Arcadia (an Umbrella research ship claiming to be the infection-free town in Alaska) is the usual city-wide horde of zombies, mutants, and requisite big-bads (of which there are two this time: a nearly indestructible executioner-type mutant called the Axeman, and the hyperspeedy, red-eyed Wesker).
The new four-jawed zombie effects were cool (especially the split-headed Cerberus dogs), and the Axeman fight sequence was really well-done (perhaps the best in the movie, even including the opening sequence mentioned above). But as the first film in the series to use 3D, it didn't succeed as well as it could have. Comparing Afterlife to a 3D success story like Hugo or Avatar is like comparing Star Wars to other sci-fi space adventures of its time: they attempt to use smaller budget effects to create something on a larger scale that winds up looking like, well, a bunch of plastic mannequins floating on a green-screen.
The 3D effects here amount to little more than slow-motion close-ups, obvious wire-work, and the occasional computer-generated weapon or shard of glass flying sluggishly toward the camera. The result is cool enough, but not always good enough.
C
Stay tuned next issue for a unique take on the zombie genre, courtesy of Just the Ticket and After Dark Films.
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