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Ben X

Resident Evil

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With the news, only months after the final film was released, that this franchise is getting rebooted, I decided to watch all six films over a few days. Here are my brief notes (tl;dr 3 and 4 are quite good, the rest are rubbish):

 

Resident Evil - cheap-feeling, ineffective movie with weak action and gore. Rips off Aliens and Cube amongst other things. The only thing worse than the stiffly-delivered perfunctory dialogue is the dirge of 90s alt metal jarringly slapped on top of it. The whole thing feels like it was written by a 14 year old and directed by someone straight out of film school.

 

Resident Evil Apocalypse - even worse than the first; while that film at least had a basic story this is just a series of stuff happening, but with even worse dialogue, lower levels of coverage for action scenes and cheesier monster design. Rarely rises above the level of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and often feels more like an advert for a tough-on-dirt cleaning product.

 

Resident Evil Extinction - wow, what a step up this film is. The real-world locations and a good director (Russell Mulcahy who also directed Highlander) are probably the key changes that make this film better in every way. Readable action scenes! Believable characters and dialogue! Cool monster design! A better-implemented, less cheesy score! It's not a classic film by any means - it's still hobbled by the franchise's episodic nature, and is now ripping off Mad Max 2 and The Birds along with the usual zombie tropes in place of Aliens and Cube (though it does it much better) - but it's a lot more enjoyable and professional, and it even retroactively fixes a few issues with Apocalypse.

 

Resident Evil Afterlife - okay, this time it's The Matrix being ripped off, all leather-clad, rain-drenched slo-mo, but again it's done well enough that it's enjoyable. Again, the episodic nature hurts it a little, and it's the siege tropes that get a run through this time, but the continent-spanning, genre-swapping nature means it never feels dull. Also, the (real) 3D is great - I was severely disappointed when Anderson's Musketeers 3D was so ineffective.

 

Resident Evil Retribution - what starts off as a promisingly inventive set-up - clones, mind-control and simulated environments allowing for versions of various characters from previous films to show up with different loyalties or peronalities in a variety of settings - is mostly wasted in this blur of dreary CGI and imploding lore (How is Wesker alive? How did Valentine get turned and where has she been? Why is the Red Queen suddenly in charge of Umbrella and wanting to wipe out humanity? Why does Wesker need Alice if he's the better version of her? How did Luther West end up working for Wesker's group of mercenaries? Perhaps these are getting left for the next film but that's pretty unsatisfying in the meantime). Michelle Rodriguez is the only returning actor who gets anything interesting to do, and there is a less welcome return of the creaking dialogue and paper-thin characterisation from the first two films. 

 

Resident Evil Final Chapter - goes back on everything set up at the end of the previous movie, entirely stops making sense and is at this point extremely repetitive. Unsatisfying.

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I recently spent two work days (I work at a video store) "watching" the Resident Evil series because there is a strain of cinephile who views these movies as highly progressive and experimental provocations in space, artificiality, and action staging and I was curious as to what there was to that.

 

I can't stand these moviesI can't imagine a less appealing aesthetic, personally, and the action scenes bore me to tears. Granted, I had them on at work so I couldn't actually sit down and watch them start to finish, but I saw enough to be completely put off. Which is too bad, because the idea of Paul WS Anderson hijacking a video game adaptation series to be about how badass and awesome his wife (Milla Jovovich) is is very weird and appealing.

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What makes the first Resident Evil film worse is the fact that it is the same film as Aliens vs Predator.

 

Having watched them back to back, there are whole premises and shots ripped off directly from each other. Terrible.

 

I had a lot more time for part 5 than I expected and it is a goofy stupid thing but it had the best laughs of all of the films.

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For those unaware, Alien (singular!) vs. Predator was also directed and written by Paul W.S. (What Script?) Anderson and, along with (blech) Death Race, was the reason he wasn't available to direct parts 2 or 3. I haven't watched AvP since it came out, I don't think, but I do remember he ripped off Cube in that film as well, down to the 'character is sliced up but stands normally for a moment before the cuts appear and they collapse into pieces' moment that he also nicked for Resident Evil. (To be fair, that gets ripped off a lot, it's as bad as the bus moment from Final Destination). I'm tempted to watch it again, now!

 

I actually enjoyed Part 5 a lot more in the cinema (the 3D may have helped), so I was disappointed that once I was aware of the general premise it didn't stand up at all. That film and part 6 may have suffered a little from me watching them in such quick succession too.

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Dammit @twmac you made me watch AvP. Similarities to Resident Evil that I noticed:

 

A team of soldiers led by Colin Salmon and accompanied by civilians on behalf of a huge corporation investigate a structure deep underground and are infected one by one.
Doors open and close to trap them in certain sections. 
Dissolve from a CG wireframe of the structure and the characters moving within it to the actual structure and characters.
Colin Salmon's character is sliced into cubes.
That Cube 'character is sliced up but stands normally for a moment before the cuts appear and they collapse into pieces' moment 
The two lone survivors make it back to the surface and fight a giant dangerous-tongued monster.
One of the survivors is taken away and is revealed to be infected, which will lead to a hybrid monster that will show up in the sequel.

It is shit.

 

Did I miss any?

 

Also, I just noticed that Anderson's Mortal Kombat movie is on Prime. Dare I?

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Hhahahahh, yup!

 

There is also the whole reveal where it does the cruddy freeze frame in AvP as the facehuggers jump and it cues the shitty music. Just like the first Zombie attack.

There is the butch female who gets relegated early on to a nothing part (in Resident Evil -Michelle Rodriguez gets a bigger role but we basically know she is dead almost from the outset).

There is the nerdy guy you think is dead but then isn't dead, then is actually dead.

 

There is also the bit where the person with close personal affiliation with the female lead helps out, only for it to back fire (Resident Evil = betrayal, AvP = violent death).

 

They are the same fucking film.

 

Anderson made a Mortal Kombat film? Oh dear.

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I have always held Resident Evil Apocalypse as a big guilty pleasure. It's such an insane thing, like an extremely poor Escape From New York, which gets increasingly unhinged near the end. BUT, it has a pretty effective finale, with a helicopter, hordes of zombies, Nemesis, and a killer 'horror' ending. The low budget appeal is what makes it fun to watch in my book. In fact I'm hungry to watch it again.

 

The third one is arguably the "best", if only for zombie Elvis and zombie crows.

 

The story of this franchise makes me very sad, because with a little effort this could've actually made sense and be good and filled with characters that, though inevitably flimsy, you could follow and care about and actually grow to popcorn-love. HEY, maybe they'll get that right in the reboot! I was initially guffawing at the thought of a reboot, but then I realized it has been a hundred years since the first one came out, and yeah, they arguably could do it a lot better this time around.

 

HA OR NOT OF COURSE!

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2 hours ago, Roderick said:

with a little effort this could've actually made sense and be good and filled with characters that, though inevitably flimsy, you could follow and care about and actually grow to popcorn-love.

 

Yeah, not that I'm a big fan of the Fast & Furious franchise, but it pulls that stuff off a lot more successfully than RE.

 

Having just re-watched it, if I had to pick a guilty PWSA pleasure it would be Mortal Kombat - it's goofy, painfully cheesy and totally metal. But I don't have to, so I will simply consign it to the list of bad films I will never watch again.

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Resi is still this stupid guilty pleasure for me xd Some of the films just ended up being boring but the original 3 and the one in the simulation are pretty fun.

I also like (to a lesser extent) the Underworld movies (or just parts of them) which is another famous Director and Star couple series.

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Underworld is still going, isn't it? They should have mashed up those franchises before finishing Resi.

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I frequently get the two DVD covers for that series mixed up when I see them at a distance - it would have been delightfully stupid to have Zombies,Werewolves and Vampires in one film.

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That must exist already. I always thought a good running gag for a vampires vs zombies movie would be that humans keep asking "but aren't vampires technically zombies?" to which the increasingly-irritated vampires keep shouting "NO!"

 

I think the best thing about Resident Underworld would be if you got Anderson and Wiseman to co-direct, causing the film to become two hours of 'cool wife' one-upmanship.

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They have probably discussed this hypothetical film before and just decided having group sex with each other would be a more efficient use of their time. This has almost certainly happened.

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Maybe they got Tim Burton to film it and Helena Bonham-Carter to hand out towels.

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