A Review of “The Green Mile”

Stephen King’s works have been adapted into numerous films, but I think most will agree that the best of them all isn’t even a horror a movie. The Green Mile is a touching period tale of a death-row warden who encounters a sentenced man, John Coffey, with a bizarre ability to heal any illness.

The depression era setting feels genuine and the locales are extremely memorable. For a movie that limits its milieus to a very few key locations, the movie does an excellent job at keeping you invested in everything that goes on. Despite the movie having a bleak and serious story it also has great human warmth and best of all, a very down-to-earth sense of humour.

A big part of this is also because of the excellent cast. Tom Hanks is great as he usually is, but it’s his supporting group this time around that makes the film so great. David Morse’s warm but gruff persona completes the firm but human character of Hanks. Doug Hutchison does a brilliant job as the sadistic and cruel Percy Wetmore who brings a level darkness to the film on a more down-to-earth level – in contrast to Sam Rockwell and his performance of the deranged Wild Bill Wharton.

But of course, the real star of the picture is Michael Clarke Duncan as the gentle giant, John Coffey. Duncan does an excellent job selling the child-like innocence of the character without devolving into a cartoonish or over-the-top performance. It’s still, in my view, Duncan’s finest performance and it’s amazing that an actor of his stature (both figuratively and literally) can be so sympathetic. Michael Jeter is also extremely likeable in his role as the Cajun mouse-training Del.

The supporting cast is also filled with grade-A actors and no-one in the film thankfully gives a lackluster or mediocre performance.

With a believable setting, solid performances and brilliant dialogue, the movie manages to keep the audience invested through its three-hour running time. There are good ways and there are bad ways to make long movies and The Green Mile thankfully doesn’t commit any of the crimes other three-hour films tend to be guilty of. It is simply a perfectly paced, perfectly acted and perfectly written film.

Grade: 5 out of 5

A Review of “John Carpenter’s The Thing”

John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of the The Thing from Another World can be viewed as a bleak, nihilistic, bloody mess or a timeless cult classic of the horror, science fiction and thriller genres. My viewpoint in this review is that it’s ludicrous to think that any of these things would somehow exclude each other. The Thing plays all sides of the gorefest and atmospheric spectrums of film, but unlike others it actually manages to find a balance with them all – much like Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz.

The first striking thing about the movie are its visuals. Not its gore and creature effects, but the cold icy milieu which creates an excellent feeling of isolation. You really believe that the film’s group of characters are in the middle of nowhere with no way to escape the alien monster that hunts them. The movie’s locales look genuine and gritty.

The second extremely impressive thing about the movie is its actor performances. Of course, Kurt Russel is the first one to stand out, but I’d like to think that this is the first monster movie I’ve seen where there are no expendable characters. Everyone comes off genuine and not as posers and you honestly feel for them as they become killed one by one. Wilford Brimley is another show-stealer, but everyone from the hard and rugged Keith David and Richard Masur, to the sympathetic T.K. Carter and Donald Muffet, to the more slimy David Clennon stand out well.

Ennio Morricone’s score this time is very low-key and I do have to confess, not as memorable as his grandiose and melodic scores from his Spaghetti-Western days. However, the score is appropriate for the movie and its low-key atmosphere.

What the film also does extremely well is a feeling of suspense and paranoia. It’s this element that makes it possible for the characters and the audience to not entirely trust any of the characters. The Thing is one of those movies where you might start to connect the dots much later and in that it’s a movie that actually improves on multiple viewings. The blood-test scene of course is the culmination of the paranoid atmosphere built up thus far, but the previously mentioned excellent character performances are what give it the strength it needs as a culminating scene of the film.

Then of course there’s the monster and gore effects. Yes, they are gruesome, they are almost upsettingly gross and almost ridiculously over the top. But if modern audiences can stomach seeing a pair of garden scissors being stuffed down Anna Reid’s throat, Anthony Hopkins making Ray Liotta eat his own brain or Ben Daniels rising from a body bag to bash his own head in, in order to prevent his own resurrection – I think modern audiences should have the stomach for the nightmarish and unbelievable monster effects in this movie.

The Thing is a strong movie even by today’s standards, in spite rather than because of its gory monster effects. It’s a horror film with not only gore, but dialogue, a story and an atmosphere, something which is more than I can say for most movies of almost any genre today.

Grade: 4,5 out f 5

Green Hornet – Review

I finally got around to watching the Green Hornet movie adaptation. Based on the cult 60s TV show, which is perhaps better remembered for its early featuring of the legendary Bruce Lee than anything else, the movie stays true to its roots at least in form if not necessarily in style. The original Green Hornet was at its core a serious vigilante action series which was tinted by the slightly cheesy and campy style of its period (but not to the same extent as its far campier contemporary, the Adam West Batman). The movie’s approach is a little different, with a heavier lean on comedy yet still keeping with the action element inherent in the series and still featuring criminals who are very, very bad.

On the cast, I am happy to note that there was not a single actor who was under-utilised, which tends to be a recurring problem with the most star-studded action films of recent years. Although, I am not Seth Rogen’s biggest fan, you instantly sympathise with his character and are still able to laugh at his idiocy and smart-assedness. He is the Jack Black of the Tenacious D formed by Rogen and Jay Chou.

Chou’s role as the ingenious, suave and constantly bitter Kato doesn’t allow him to shine as much. However, he’s clearly intended to be the film’s true action-star, dominating every single action scene in the film. His role is both prominent and a little downplayed as the film-makers obviously wanted to stay respectful of the memory of Bruce Lee, while at the same time they had to sell the idea that far more gifted, intelligent and badass Kato could somehow possibly sympathise and feel comradeship towards the drunken, excitable and somewhat dim-witted Britt Reid.

Christoph Waltz is as charming and captivating as he always is in his villainous roles. His very presence seems to indicate the presence of pure evil, whether he is Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds or Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers. However, in the role of Chudkofsky he also gets to show his playful and even slightly sympathetic side as the powerful crime lord with a hint of a midlife crisis. His introductory scene with cocky James Franco just perfectly illustrates all sides of his character.

Cameron Diaz also plays her role well and in a considerably different way from the average dime-a-dozen potential love interest characters. Even though she isn’t at the forefront of the film’s events, she still adds to the heart of the film with her sheer presence.

As mentioned before, the film takes a considerably more comedic route with its style than the original TV series. In fact at times the movie will start to feel like a mere shadow of the original, suave and well-dressed show where everyone wore a fedora and the dialogue was hard-hitting and straight-faced. At the same time I can’t really berate the film for turning the whole concept of the show on its ear since I don’t honestly think that a straight adaptation of the TV series would really work for a 21st century audience. A serious Green Hornet movie would have been buried under the mountain of serious superhero-vigilante films, the most notable of all being the Batman films. So the almost parody-like approach to the concept of the original TV show really works in the movie’s advantage. It’s a fun movie where you can leave your brain at the door.

At the same time that is also the movie’s weakness. The comedy is intentionally low-brow and sometimes Seth Rogen’s material is just too painfully corny even for my taste. Also, the action and comedy really dominates over the story, which is basically there just to give context to what’s happening. There are no big “ah-ha” moments and the human storyline is unfortunately lacking even though the film makes daring attempts at shoe-horning it into the action-piece.

At the same time, the movie is very entertaining and definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of the TV series or if you just want to have a good time. It’s not a masterpiece, but a well-intentioned and a loving parody of the source material it’s based on.

Score: 3½ out of 5

Avengers Films Overview

The Avengers Super Hero Team Up film is coming next year. Now that all of the preliminary movies in the Marvel franchise have come out I thought it would be fun to look back at them and compare how they fared in the over-all.

Iron Man 1 + 2

I guess it goes without saying that the Iron Man films have been the biggest successes in the franchise. In fact, I’d say they are the two best films in the Avengers line hands down. Robert Downey Jr.’s amazing performance as Tony Stark is what makes these movies so awesome, the combination of comedy and a serious story just plain works well.

What was even more impressive was that Iron Man 2 improved practically in every area. The story was still good, the action-scenes were actually better and the villain was extremely memorable. It’s very rare for me to see a sequel that I feel instantly is better than the original.

In fact this raises the bar rather high for the Avengers film, but if Captain America is anything to go by the franchise is looking good.

United Rating: 4½/5

***

The Incredible Hulk (not)

When I found out a new Hulk movie was on its way I became excited. When I found out that it was a reboot with none of the original actors I was disappointed. When I finally went to see it in the theatre I was shocked at how bad it was. And after three years I still haven’t changed my opinion: The Incredible Hulk just plain sucked.

It’s not just the fact that the film is a reboot, in fact they even gave the Ang Lee film a nice little nod in the form of Bruce Banner’s self-imposed exile in South America, but the fact that Hulk could go from such a dark, brooding and well-written character drama in to a loud, brainless action-fest in “Incredible” was rather upsetting. And it’s not even an amusing brainless action-fest. If the film-makers’ goal was to make a more action-packed Hulk film they could have been more honest about it and had Hulk rampaging through the cities at the very start.

There are in all only three things I liked about the film. First of them was actually Edward Norton’s performance which sadly is not going to be seen in the Avengers film since Norton and Marvel got into massive disagreements (and I guess Eric Bana was too busy).  The second thing was Tim Roth’s latent charisma and that’s about all you get from him since the director felt to pick him to play the role of the most bland and generic of Hulk’s adversaries, the Abomination. The third one is Stan Lee’s cameo. Not only is it probably the funniest in any Marvel film, it actually moves the story along.

Still, this movie just makes me angry, and you won’t like me when I’m angry.

Rating: 2/5

***

Thor

Thor had to go head-to-head this Summer with another comically charming Super-Hero from the competing DC Comics, Green Lantern. Blow for blow, The Green Lantern was the better movie – but doesn’t mean Thor was a bad movie. Since I’m not a big Thor fan, this might explain why I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I could have, the film-makers still made a decent job at trying to cram as much of the comic’s characters into the film as possible.

The film had action, comedy and Stellan Skarsgård lending some of his Scandinavian charisma into the film. However, Thor’s biggest problem is that it didn’t give the characters enough time to develop and the whole movie felt a little rushed – like the director just wanted the story to move along without delay. As a result the film didn’t get a chance to really shine but it’s still an extremely entertaining picture if that’s what you’re looking for.

Rating: 3/5

***

Captain America: The First Avenger

Finally, I my hopes were really high for Captain America’s newest motion picture appearance. Seeing the treatment that Iron Man and Thor had, I was expecting this one to be excellent. When I found out that Chris Evans of Fantastic Four fame was the lead I became even more excited at the prospect of seeing him in yet another Marvel film (especially in light of Fan-4′s impeding reboot).

Captain America impressed the heck out of me. Not only did it make me care about Steve Rogers, I was also happy that every possible angle of the Captain America character was explored. The film even included some notable supporting cast from the comics which was a nice touch.

Hugo Weaving was amazing, both with or without the skull mask. In all, the film works as a great prelude to the up-coming Avengers film but also takes the time and care to handle its own plot carefully. It’s easily on-par with the first Iron Man film but not perhaps quite as good as the second.

Either way, a film worth seeing.

Rating: 4/5

***

The Lord of the Rings (1978) Review

Ralph Bakshi made his move to the fantasy genre in 1976 with the movie Wizards. The following year he began work on his most ambitious movie to date – to make an animated movie out of a novel that had been considered unfilmable: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Bakshi intended to make two movies which would each deal with one half of the story but sadly he only got to finish the first one. Years later people’s opinions on the movie have divided sharply, some considering it a failed effort while others consider it an ambitious project for its day which yielded a fairly competent animated movie.

As discussed before the film covers roughly the first half of the novel, right up to the Battle of Helm’s Deep and thus covers the same length as the first two Peter Jackson movies – but does so in 120 minutes or 2 hours. This is quite an achievement and something I wish Jackson would have taken into account before filming his butt-numbing 3 hour epics. Now admittedly the 2 hour length requires that certain elements of the story are omitted and especially in the film’s latter half certain scenes jump quickly to new ones. But given the popularity of Jackson’s adaptions – even those who haven’t read the book know the general outline of the story and therefore the general series of events.

Animation wise Bakshi’s film was also an interesting exercise. The film was done primarily through rotoscoped animation in which the film was first shot and the animated cells were drawn over the live-action footage. As with Bakshi’s later Fire & Ice illustrates this process has both its advantages and disadvantages. The ultimate result and what Bakshi was after was a more realistic look for an animated feature and this is indeed what has been accomplished with the characters moving gracefully on the screen for the most part. However, where the rotoscoping has been a little too exaggerated the characters may sometimes look a little jittery.

When it comes to the big battle-scenes they are an obvious source of criticism for fans. In most scenes both the human and orc soldiers are just black-and-white footage with cartoon additions (such as glowing red eyes and fangs for the orcs) over them. However in the over-all the usage of rotoscoping is much cleaner and far more effective than in the prior Wizards - which looked far messier by comparison. The orcs admittedly are more comical than threatening but I’ve never found this to be a bad thing.

I felt the movie did an excellent job with its characterisations and I especially liked the fact that I was able to tell characters like Aragorn and Boromir or Gandalf and Saruman apart more clearly. The cartoony nature of the adaptation in general helps give life to it, even with the very toned down colour scheme of the film. This combined with an excellent soundtrack gives the movie a unique atmosphere.

Naturally, the film does have its weak spots. Admittedly the silhouette opening didn’t look entirely convincing – but it still conveyed the essential background information for the movie which I felt was much more important. However, truly the film’s animating low point was the Balrog scene. It’s not so much Balrog himself but rather the lighting and grading of the scene which slightly ruin it. The film-makers attempted to make the Balrog seem menacing (including a strong audio-design to give his footsteps great thunder) but the utter lack of shading and the overt lightness of the background made the Balrog scene look too flat and therefore it lost its dramatic impact. The best part of the Balrog scene is the three-second close up of his and Gandalf’s swords colliding and when Gandalf collapses the bridge from under the Balrog.

So yes, the movie has its faults but none in my view are so great that they would ruin the viewing experience altogether. Bakshi’s effort has been badmouthed unnecessarily and considering the limited budget he had to work with I personally applaud his effort. While the Lord of the Rings may not be his best work to date, it’s undoubtedly his best fantasy film from a story point of view. And even if he didn’t write it, he knew what to focus on. Fire & Ice delivered on the animation department and Wizards in his attempt to tell a serious story, but in Lord of the Rings he achieved the best balance of both.

Score: 4 out of 5

Wizards (1976) review

Time for a movie review. I recently had the pleasure of watching Wizards, Ralph Bakshi’s first animated fantasy film. Bakshi’s other fantasy projects include the somewhat inherently comical yet animation-wise impressive Fire & Ice as well as the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings (soon to be reviewed). But Wizards is what started Bakshi on this path in his career, moving away from his urban films and trying to incorporate his political awareness with a fun animated film.

Wizards takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has destroyed themselves, becoming mutant monsters. Meanwhile, elves and fairies take back the land but the fairy queen gives birth to two brothers, Avatar and Blackwolf.  Blackwolf builds himself an army and using WWII propaganda footage excites his forces into attacking the peaceful magical creatures. Meanwhile the same war films (which he projects over the skies of the battlefield) discourage the elves and fairies from fighting. When the Elf President is assassinated by a robot, the aged Avatar, the president’s fairy daughter Elenore and the Elf Warrior Weehawk decide that they must make a stand against Blackwolf. Helping them is the converted robot, Peace, who now guides them to the dark land of Scorch.

The film utilizes both traditional animation as well as rotoscoped footage (as seen in Bakshi’s later films). Unlike in those later films, it’s clear that Bakshi uses these techniques to cover up for the lack of an animating budget – and sadly, they are also the least impressive part of the film. The rotoscoping clearly lacks the care and attention that was present in the Lord of the Rings and Fire & Ice. However, these scenes achieve their basic purpose which is to depict the horrific armies of Scorch.

The traditionally animated characters look brilliant. Avatar and Elenore are wonderful lively characters. Many of the supporting cast are also brilliant and although there are sloppy spots here and there (not to mention some obvious animation re-usage) the over-all look is quite good. Even the still images used to tell the story at the very beginning and in a few spots towards the end look pretty nice due to their detail but it would have been nice if these parts had been animated as well.

In all, I only have a few complaints about the film. Richard Romanus’ performance as Weehawk doesn’t deserve many hoorahs and he sounds quite unenthusiastic most of the time. In addition sometimes the character’s animation and facial expressions simply don’t match. The other problem with the film is perhaps the slight lack of refinement and the clash with the rotoscoped footage – though I’ll admit that the live-action backgrounds for the most part look good.

The film even has a particularly nice touch of comedy in it. Bob Holt’s performance as Avatar is wonderful and I also like the bumbling pair(s) of gas-mask wearing goons who are all hilarious with their antics.

Despite Bakshi’s insistence that the film is intended for kids, it none the less features small amounts of nudity and I should say an excessive amount of gore for a “family” feature. The gore is not upsetting in and of itself but rather that Bakshi seems rather oblivious to why it’s inappropriate. The level of nudity is a little distracting but not to such a degree that it would affect the viewer’s judgement of the film (unlike with Fire & Ice).

In all however, Wizards is a good movie in spite of its miss-mashness. It has a good message, good writing (especially if compared to Fire & Ice), fun comedy and bits of genuinely enjoyable animation. This one is definitely worth a watch if you forgive its slight lack of refinement.

Grade: 3 out of 5

Fire & Ice – Swords, Sorcery and LOLz

Ralph Bakshi is a man best known for his films Wizards and the 1978 animated adaption of The Lord of the Rings. In the early 1980s he teamed up with Conan the Barbarian illustrator Frank Frazetta to produce to the fantasy schlock-fest known as Fire and Ice. The film tells the story of a scantily clad and barely his-butt-covering hero, Larn as his people are killed by the glacier, moved magically by the sickly looking wizard Nekron.

Real men don't need pants...

The movie also stars a scantily clad heroine, Princess Teegra, who is captured by orcs – or as they’re referred to in the movie, “Nekron’s dogs” – in an attempt to force her father, the King of the volcano-castle Firekeep, to surrender his throne. As is typical of Bakshi, the film is full of intentional and unintentional hilarity provided by the abundance of rotoscoped animation (cel-animation drawn over live footage) and the silly costume department*, lots of violence, a little bit of gore and even borderline nudity (though nothing explicit) but also surprisingly high-quality animation.

(* seriously though no-one in this film seems to wear any pants.)

I say... is it a little nippy in there?

Those of you who have actually seen the animated Lord of the Rings film may be divided over whether or not you thought it was any good. I liked it but will admit that the way some scenes were staged, the way the rotoscoping and colour disaturation on some footage was done to make it look like animation (even though it clearly wasn’t) made certain scenes look really dodgy and silly. Worst of all was the Balrog-scene which was by far the animating low point of the film – but I would also like to point out that the rest of the animation in the film is much better than most Tolkien fanboys would like you to imagine.

Fear my awesome!!

With Fire & Ice, Bakshi however has redeemed himself in my view from that horrendous Balrog-incident. The scene in which this happens involves the orcs (“dogs”) looking for Teegra who manages to pull a fast one on them and escape (momentarily). The orcs are then attacked by a gigantic water lizard which proceeds to slaughter them all with his pure awesomeness. It’s hands down the most impressive piece of animation in the movie and the film would be worth seeing for it alone.

No, he is not having an orgasm, he is in fact casting a spell... I think.

The film has generally no major weak points in its animation, except maybe for a set of still shots near the end of the movie where they seemed to have run out of time animating the film’s climax. I’m willing to forgive this one scene though because of the awesomeness elsewhere. The film’s only true bad point, in my view, is the writing and namely how lazy it is. It’s traditional fantasy schlock as I mentioned but even for that the plot seems to be riddled with plot elements that don’t really amount to anything. Character development is really non-existent and it also sort of hurts the movie because some of the character motivations just aren’t really clear at all.

Make fun of my hat, go ahead, I dare you...

The perfect example is the Guy-with-an-animal-skin-hat or Dark Wolf as he is called in the film’s trailer. He seems to have a particular grudge against Nekron and his mother, Juliana. It’s a shame because he’s hands down my favorite character in the film – not only because he’s the only character in the film to adequately cover his butt but also because he just kicks so much orc-ass. The main problem is that he clearly has an interesting back-story but, as is, the movie only really hints at it (spoiler: my guess is that he’s really Nekron’s dad and he’s pissed for getting jilted by Juliana).

The film is extremely entertaining to watch and for that I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in fantasy-action films. It’s not a movie that should be taken too seriously, it has its weak points but it has enough entertainment value that you will not get bored watching it.

Score: 3½ out of 5

Shooting for the Moon

Despicable Me is a new 3D animated venture by Universal Studios and I have to say surprisingly good in this regard. I am not the biggest fan of CG-animated movies but this one got me interested early on and thankfully it didn’t disappoint.

The film is about a “villain” named Gru who wants to steal the moon to prove his greatness after a competing villain has managed to steal the Pyramid of Giza. His stolen shrink-ray, which he plans to use to shrink the moon, is stolen by his nemesis and in an effort to get it back Gru adopts three cookie-selling orphans: Megan, Edith and Agnes. However very soon the children begin to interfere in his life and plans – but also force him to act as a father to them.

The film is extremely strong in several areas. The animation and comedy, especially the physical comedy of the million-fold yellow minions is one of the best parts of the movie. At times the minions almost steal the show with their slapstick antics and the end of the movie devotes several more minutes to a silly series of skits. Still, they help add life to the movie. Dr. Nefario was also hilarious at times.

Steve Carell’s performance as Gru is brilliant. Despite his stereotypical evil scientist accent he comes off as a fully fleshed out character with great emotional scale to boot. In addition he has a few really hilarious recurring lines (“lightbulb!”) and generally his discomfort in having to deal with three little girls is the really the heart and soul of the film.

The three girl characters are also brilliantly executed. Agnes was obviously my favorite, she was just adorable but thankfully had some personality beyond that. The way she’s immediately attached to Gru is hilarious. Edith fell into the background a little bit but she’s essentially the punk of the group and she has a few funny lines. Margo is the eldest and the most suspicious and untrusting of the three girls but thankfully this side of her wasn’t too accentuated.

The only thing I can complain about the movie is a clear example of product placement in one scene which was a little distracting (even if it was a product I myself use). On the over-all Despicable Me was a really strong film and in fact one of the best 3D animated films I’ve seen. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Lesbian Couples, Fertilized Eggs and Organic Tomatoes

So yesterday I went to see The Kids Are All Right , a drama-film about two test-tube kids living with their lesbian parents. The boy, Laser, who’s 15 wants to meet his and his sister’s biological dad and asks his sister Joni, who’s 18 and about to move out of the house, to help him. Their dad is Paul, a college-dropout who now runs his own organic garden and restaurant and especially hits it off with Joni. The kids’ parents Nic, a nurse and the bread-winner of the family, and Julianne Moore (whose character’s name I can’t remember so I’ll keep referring to her as Julianne Moore) are at first upset that the kids went behind their back but then decide to give Paul a chance to present himself.

The plot thickens as Julianne Moore has just started a landscaping business and offers to fix Paul’s backyard. However, she and Paul suddenly have a mysterious fling and this causes a chain-reaction which eventually causes everyone’s relationships to fall to pieces.

Despite its serious plot the film has a latent comedic feel and luckily the moments of levity enhance the experience. The story itself is well written and constructed and takes a decisively realistic take without overt drama and unexpected plot-movements. This might make the movie feel a little mundane but clearly the point isn’t to wow the audience but instead tell a fairly believable scenario and deal with a really serious subject matter.

The high amounts of sex scenes are about the only thing that maybe took me out of the movie. However, Nic and Julianne Moore’s stale sex-life is clearly a central theme and so they are justified to a degree. Really I was rather puzzled about the ultimate cause of Julianne Moore’s fling with Paul, not so much why but how could it happen. Paul as a character is represented as something of an outsider story-wise even though from a cinematic point-of-view he’s just as much in the center of events as anyone else. This lack of distance is what got a me a little discontent about his ultimate fate in the movie (which is left a little open) as the film didn’t really depict him as an evil-deuce, just a deuce who clearly regrets his mistake at the end.

Really the only other big criticism for the film is that it didn’t focus so much on the kids, Laser and Joni, as it did on the relationship of their Moms. Laser and Joni are really the main players at the beginning of the film and after first bonding with Paul take a real backseat role. Laser at least goes through a character arc, accepting that Clay (his best friend) is an unstable dick but even this really happened peripheral to everything else that’s going on.

The end of the movie tries to reflect on Joni’s conflicted feelings towards her Moms and her biological dad. The ending at least has some feeling of fulfillment and I definitely stayed invested in the characters until the end. I do feel that the film’s ultimate dramatic balance wasn’t quite right but even then the movie is a recommended watch.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Alice Saga continues…

So today was the premier of Resident Evil: Afterlife in my home-country and it was definitely cool to go see the film. This was also my first time watching a 3D movie and the effect was surprisingly effective. In case you’ve missed the prior RE movie reviews click here for the text version and here for my YouTube video review of the three first films…

So, after regaining some of its zombie-movie cred with the semi-homage to Day of the Dead in the previous flick, Afterlife returns to the action-movie ways of the second film and goes all out on the presentation. Story-wise the film has drifted quite far from the games but at least central characters are beginning to appear slightly more prominently towards the end of this instalment.

So the film starts where the previous one ended. The film’s first intro piece follows the Alice clones as they assault the Umbrella Headquarters in Tokyo. After this intense  action-piece the film begins to follow (what I presume to be) the real Alice as she attempts to track down the survivors led by Claire Redfield to Alaska in the last movie. She finds only Claire, at first violently delusional, then amnesic from the effects of a bizarre device attached to her chest. The movie really kicks off when Alice arrives at Los Angeles and meets up with a new cast of survivors and begins to uncover the mystery of the radio transmission from Arcadia which promises food and shelter from the T-Virus.

The film’s plot is thankfully at least marginally better than that of Apocalypse which was really more of an “escaping from certain death” scenario – but just like Apocalypse the film suffers from a very simplistic treatment of characters and you’re not nearly as sold on the peril as you were with the first and third films. The film also rather coldly squanders the supporting cast, most of whom are killed before the film enters its final act. However, the characters also enter the film relatively late which means you don’t have a lot of time to get to know them or get attached to them – as was the case with me in the last film where I was incredibly depressed when most of them got killed off.

The film is a definite visual spectacle, more so than any of the prior films and this is largely due to the 3D-effects which I admit were amazing but sadly will not be as spectacular when I’m watching this movie again six months from now on DVD. And if I hadn’t just bought the G.I. Joe DVD and seen The Expendables I would be inclined to say that the action is excessive. It’s definitely waaaay more over-the-top than Apocalypse. In that it’s also extremely entertaining and pleasing to the eye as the action-scenes were shot without the excessive camera-shaking which I hate so much.

The movie has definitely drifted far from the grounded horror feel of Resident Evil 1 and I’m rather surprised since this is the first movie in the series since the first instalment that Paul W.S. Anderson has directed. It definitely isn’t his finest film but since the Resident Evil games have also gone so horribly over-the-top ever since RE4 I guess it helps to put things in perspective.

I was surprisingly pleased with the film’s depictions of Chris, Claire and Wesker. The film was certainly not dull and I loved the battle with the Axeman. However, the scene showed probably the most excessive amount of slow-motion usage which I felt was one of the biggest visual no-nos of this film. Mr. Anderson, you should know better. The ending has me a little bemused, at first it seems like this could have been the first happy ending in the film series – but then there’s a complete turn around and the audience is once again left hanging. I would have been surprised by this – but since Milla Jovovich already blurted to the press that there’s going to be a fifth film – I’m not.

The film is definitely entertaining and far better in its depiction of action than Apocalypse and even has a few tongue-in-cheek moments as well as having a lot of style and polish in its production. But it definitely didn’t rise to the level of Extinction and certainly not that of the first film. With the central RE characters now part of the story I’m hoping the fifth film might focus a little more on them but I do want Alice’s story to finally reach some sort of a conclusion.

Oh yeah, and don’t believe any rumours of a sudden reboot of the series. I myself want to see a straight adaption of the first game at some point but for now I’m content with Anderson’s saga and what it has done with the franchise so far.

Rating: 3.5/5

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RESIDENT EVIL MOVIE SERIES CHECK-LIST

WARNING: Contains spoilers

The Zombies – The film contains a bizarre mixture of the classic Romero zombies seen in the three previous films, and quick-moving tentacle mouth zombies whose origins is never explained. At times I was a little confused who was who since the zombies really rush at Alice on the rooftop at one point.

The Dogs – Probably my least favorite dog-scene in the series simply because of the over-use of CG and secondly since it served no purpose story-wise unlike in the first and second films. If they would have at least had real dogs like in the last film I would have considered it passable.

The Crows – A bunch of crows fly in Alice’s face when he checks the inside of an abandoned plane, that’s about it. They were probably just regular ass crows and not the virulent zombie ones from the last film.

The Monster – The Axeman was awesome. I got a nice tickle in my tummy when I first saw him and the battle with him is one of the highlights of the film. However, unlike the monsters in the first three films, The Axeman is more of half-way boss and not the final obstacle for the characters which was a little disappointing.

The Black Guy – Surprisingly Anderson stops a trend that had been developing in his movies for quite a while. One, Peyton and L.J. were all black supporting characters that got knocked off in each of the three previous films. The minute I saw Luther West I thought this guy was gonna die and was really surprised when he came back in the end. Unfortunately West wasn’t the most memorable supporting character that’s been seen in the films and I personally would have preferred to see L.J. in this film as well. Why did he have to die? Whyyyy!?! =(

The Little Girl – Unfortunately this is also the first Anderson movie not to feature a little girl (or a child of any kind) in a central or even supporting role. After the Red Queen, Angie and White Queen from the first three films I would have really wanted to see something to up-keep the little girl in a horror film tradition. Or maybe Anderson decided the idea’s been done to death (which it has, still, I like the idea).

Smoking – Surprisingly, no characters smoke in this film unlike the last two. Even Claire who seemed to have a serious nicotine addiction in the last film didn’t even get the urge. I’m not sure if this is a deliberate decision by Anderson but I think it’s interesting since Anderson himself admitted on the Apocalypse commentary he has a bad habit of featuring characters that smoke in his films.

Also, I’ll be adding some funny stuff from this film into the RE Funny Stuff list, be sure to check that out.