Posts Tagged ‘Resident Evil: Retribution’

Metro Canada In Focus – Resident Evil’s teaching moment

By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Since 2002 Milla Jovovich has played a genetically altered zombie fighter with telekinetic powers in six Resident Evil films.

Like the undead fleshbags who populate these based-on-a-videogame movies, you can’t seem to kill this franchise, although the title of this weekend’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter seems to indicate the end is near.

But just because the Resident Evil movies aren’t Shakespeare doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from them. Here’s what I took away from Jovovich and Company in the last 13 years:

1. The undead have really, really bad aim.

2. No matter what stunt she has just performed, whether it’s plummeting 19 stories down an abandoned mine shaft, or battling legions of bad guys, Mila’s hair will, at most, only look slightly tousled, as if Vidal Sassoon had just finished running his magic fingers through her locks.

3.
The amount of rainfall in the future makes Vancouver look arid.

4.
To act in one of these movies you must perfect one of two facial expressions: a. steely determination, or b. uncontrolled rage (which can be alternated with a sadistic smile if necessary).

5. Characters will say, “What the hell is going on here?” when it is quite clear what the heck is going on.

6. Most of the people to survive the deadly plague that destroyed most of humanity look like Abercrombie & Fitch pinups.

7. Why take the stairs when you can drive a Rolls Royce down an escalator?

So there you have it — lessons learned.

Despite legendary director Jean-Luc Godard’s claim that, “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” both of which are amply on display in the Resident Evil movies, they still feel more like a videogame projected on a big screen than a movie.

But who cares what I or other film critics think? These movies have been phenomenally successful and for over a decade have proven to be critic-proof. Roger Ebert placed Resident Evil on his most hated films list in 2005 and called its sequel, “an utterly meaningless waste of time,” adding, “Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children.”

Leonard Maltin added to the pile on calling Resident Evil: Apocalypse “tiresome” while Dark Horizons said the third movie, Afterlife was, “perhaps the first 3D motion picture to simulate the experience of watching paint dry,” and yet the splatter flick went on to gross $300 million worldwide.

Critics aside, others in the film biz love the movies. Avatar director James Cameron called Resident Evil his biggest guilty pleasure and the Ontario Media Development Corporation acknowledged the Toronto-shot Afterlife as the most successful production in Canadian feature film history.

Bottom line is that in total, the series has grossed almost $1 billion — a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition who called the Resident Evil films “the most successful movie series to be based on a video game,” awarding them with the record for Most Live-Action Film Adaptations of a Video Game.

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION: 1 STAR

resident-evil-retribution-posterLike the undead fleshbags who have populated the last four “Resident Evil” movies, you can’t seem to kill this franchise. Five episodes in the stories have been whittled down to shards of expository dialogue followed by wild action with loads of slo-mo shots of star Milla Jovovich flipping and spinning through the air like a top that’s spun off its axis.

But just because “Resident Evil: Retribution” isn’t Shakespeare doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from it. Here’s what I took away from Jovovich and Company:

1.)    The undead have really, really bad aim.
2.)    No matter what stunt she has just performed, whether it’s plummeting nineteen stories down an abandoned mine shaft, or battling legions of bad guys, Mila’s hair will, at most, only look slightly tousled, as if Vidal Sassoon had just finished running his magic fingers through her locks.
3.)    The amount of rainfall in the future makes Vancouver look arid.
4.)    To act in one of these movies you must perfect one of two facial expressions: a.) steely determination, or b.) uncontrolled rage (which can be alternated with a sadistic smile if necessary).
5.)    Characters will say, “What the hell is going on here?” when it is quite clear what the heck is going on.
6.)    Most of the people to survive the deadly plague that destroyed most of humanity look like Abercrombie & Fitch pinups.
7.)    Why take the stairs when you can drive a Rolls Royce down an escalator?

Lessons learned.

Despite legendary director Jean-Luc Godard’s claim that, “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” both of which are amply on display in “Resident Evil: Retribution,” this sequel still feels more like a videogame projected on a big screen than a movie.

From Resident Evil to Blade Runner – evil corporations in film By Richard Crouse Metro Canada September 12, 2012

resident_evil_retribution-wideThe Umbrella Corporation is the largest and most powerful corporate entity in the world. At least, in the world of the Resident Evil movies it is.

Since R.E. first appeared on the big screen in 2002, the Umbrella Corp has been responsible for weapons research, the release of the mutating T-virus, experiments on humans, and the creation of biologically engineered supersoldiers.

In this weekend’s Resident Evil: Retribution Umbrella’s genetic experiments turn the global population into “legions of the flesh eating undead.”

Turning the world’s people into zombies is pretty dastardly stuff, but Umbrella isn’t the only cinematic corporation bending the rules and causing harm.

How about Blade Runner’s morally despicable Tyrell Corporation?

Led by a CEO with a God complex, the company genetically engineered organic robots called replicants for use as slaves on space colonies.

Visually indistinguishable from humans, they are banned from earth, and if found on the planet are killed immediately.

That plot inspired another popular sci-fi flick.

When writer Edward Neumeier was asked about the plot of Blade Runner he replied, “It’s about cop-hunting robots.”

Inspired, he created RoboCop’s story about megacorporation Omni Consumer Products who builds the title character, a superhuman cyborg law enforcer.

It’s likely that defense firm Cyberdyne Systems had nothing but good intentions when it developed Skynet, the Global Digital Defense Network that features at the center of all the Terminator movies.

The idea was to remove the possibility of human error when responding to military threats. Who knew the technology would one day eliminate the human race?

Elimination of humankind was not on the minds of Soylent Corporation, the entity running things in the sci-fi flick Soylent Green. Set in an overpopulated, polluted world they came up with an alternative food source, Soylent Red and Yellow made of “high-energy plankton.”

A third product, Soylent Green, becomes NYC’s most popular snack until a cop (Charlton Heston) discovers the green wafer’s main ingredient. “Soylent Green is people!”

I doubt even Mitt “Corporations are people!” Romney would approve of District 9’s Multi-National United. Despite their slogan, “Paving the way to unity,” they create alien apartheid in South Africa for the purpose of performing experiments on the hapless ET’s who landed in South Africa. Most of these cinematic corporations sound innocuous.

At least the name of the corporation in Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie was truthful about what they do — Engulf & Devour.