★★★
“Extinction event.”
Has it really been three years since the last installment? Guess so. Therefore, about time for the most durable of the video-game to movie franchises, to pop up with another entry. Things continue to go from bad to worse as far as Planet Earth is concerned, with the T-virus, which spread from the complex to Raccoon City last time, now infecting the entire world. A few survivors roam the wastelands, such as in a convoy led by Claire Redfield (Larter), unable to stay in one place too long, because the zombies will locate them. Meanwhile, Dr. Isaacs (Glen) is working on reversing the virus, or at least making the zombies docile – though his approach to scientific teamwork leaves a little to be desired, shall we say. He also has a pit where he disposes of his raw material, an aspect that reminded me of the original Aeon Flux short films.
Into this comes Alice (Jovovich), who vanished off the grid, when she realised the Umbrella Corporation were tracking her. She gets lured in by a fake distress call, but after disposing of some zombie dobermans, eventually joins Redfield’s crew, just in time to save them from an attack by zombie crows [Mulcahy clearly having been inspired by The Birds, though I can’t help wondering how they got the cool contact lenses into the avian predators’ eyes.] They hear rumours of sanctuary in Alaska, and decide to head there – that requires a refuelling stop in what’s left of Vegas. However, Umbrella have been alerted by Alice’s burgeoning psychic powers and have left a nasty surprise…
S’ok. Mulcahy is no stranger to franchise cinema, having done the first couple of Highlander films, and the harsh desert lighting and exterior landscape is a nice contrast to the usual, dark, claustrophobic approach adopted by most Z-flicks. His experience is of particular use in the action sequences, where he does a better job of avoiding the cinematic excesses, in which Alexander Witt indulged, too frequently, last time up. The script is merely workmanlike: it feels too much like a series of cool set-pieces joined in the editing bay, rather than springing organically from the storyline.
The main problem, I feel, is that giving Alice mental powers detracts from the physical side of action, which has always been a major part of this series’s appeal: watching Jovovich kick zombie butt. The Las Vegas battle is unquestionably the highlight of the film as far as that goes, with Alice adopting a no-nonsense, slice-and-dice approach, that’s a gleeful joy to watch. After it, however, things go somewhat wonky: the entire Redfield subplot is airily waved away, and then there’s the inevitable boss level fight – this time against the Tyrant [if you’ve played the games, you probably know what that is, which puts you one-up on me], a somewhat rubbery, tenticular beast that is not among Patrick Tatopoulos’s best work.
Compared to the fight against the Nemesis in Apocalypse, this is a major disappointment, largely consisting of them hurling psionic shock-waves at each other. I’m sorry. This isn’t the Resident Evil I signed up for. I signed up for the one with the knock-down, drag-out punchfests, not the Harry Potter-esque BS. There’s a nice sense of symmetry, in that the battle ends in the corridor with the laser protection system, but the mechanism with which it ends is disappointing, rather than having Alice beat the Tyrant. Certainly, the lamest climactic battle of the three films.
Things do perk up at the very end. As in the first two films, there’s a grand final shot, which leaves you eagerly anticipating the next part – in this case, presumably called Resident Evil: Globapocarnarmagediediedie. Certainly, I wouldn’t be averse to seeing a fourth installment, though I would be inclined to send the makers a stiff memo before they begin production. Item #1. Try and come up with some ideas of your own. As well as the above-mentioned Hitchcock thievery, the film also borrows wholesale from Day of the Dead, Mad Max 2 and Mad Max 3, plus Alien: Resurrection. #2. After the apocalypse, the survivors will have plenty of Sony products with which to work. Really. Ease off on the unsubtle product-placement.
#3. Where was Jill Valentine? Okay, we’re kind of fond of Oded Fehr (he’s very good in Sleeper Cell), who does return as Carlos Olivera. And Larter, whom you’ll recognise from the first couple of Final Destination films, isn’t bad in her role, with a couple of kick-ass moments (left); there’s a possibility RE4 may concentrate on her. However, Sienna Guillory was better than either of them, and her unexplained absence this time is disappointing. Guess she asked for too much money or something. Finally, and most importantly, #4: skip the mental telepathy nonsense, no matter how much Milla Jovovich may want to wrinkle her forehead and lob psychic blasts at things. Just make her kick ass. The ending does give plenty of scope for development: without giving too much away, Alice could become the Swiss Army Knife of dispatching undead, with a variety of useful options. Overall, while some way short of perfect, this isn’t bad – and after some serious disappointments in recent years, it’s just good to see an action heroine back at the top of the box-office.
Dir: Russell Mulcahy
Star: Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Oded Fehr
Sometimes, you just have to sit back and let the DVD sleeve do the talking. “The notorious serial killer, Harry Eugene Loveless AKA Mr. HELL roamed from town-to-town and job-to-job, brutally murdering his victims, with the demonic intention of removing the ‘windows to the soul’ – their eyes! Mr. HELL mutilated Dr. Karl Matthews at a government laboratory where biological weapons were secretly being developed. The daughter’s precocious daughter, Tyler, who discovered her father’s body with his eyes missing, was then pursued by Harry through the lab’s subterranean tunnels. During the chase, Harry was accidentally destroyed by toxic industrial acid, and his remains flowed into a storage container. Was this the end for Mr. HELL?
This Thanksgiving viewing – that may say more about our house than anything – was a suggestion by our teen daughter, which is somewhere between a incentive and a put-off. Normally, she won’t view anything with subtitles for more than two minutes; but her tastes are closer to Anchorman or The Notebook than French slasher pics. Reviews I read in advance were similarly split: either enthusiastic hype (“arguably the best horror movie since The Blair Witch Project” wrote 
This appears to be aiming for a leg-up on The Descent bandwagon and its theme of “chicks vs. cave-dwelling monsters in a remote wilderness”; though there’s only one of each here, rather than it being a team sport. “Troubled young ranger” Danielle St. Clair (Vincent) is atop a remote tower, watching out for fires, but a careless use of dynamite unleashes an ancient Indian evil that’s been trapped in a cave for centuries. Fortunately, despite said centuries, the monster still knows how to disable satellite dishes and trash Jeeps, as well as ripping the heads off everyone in the area it meets – except for St. Clair, of course, whom it merely terrorizes. The inevitable native American (Schweig) gets wheeled on for one scene of indigestible exposition, trotting out the usual cliches about how we’ve lost touch with our inner child, or some such New Age guff. Not that the beast cares much, I was pleased to see.
Director Boll has a rep as the worst filmmaker ever, making movies based on video games entirely for tax writeoff purposes. But have things got out of hand? I mean, Bloodrayne was in the IMDB All-time Bottom 50 
I’ve recently seen movies involving vampires who run a strip-club (Vamps), and witches who run a strip-club (Witches’ Sabbath). Now, we have vampires who’re putting on a rave. It’s nice to see creatures of the night who keep themselves busy. Actually, here, they’re not fully-fledged vampires: indeed, the aim of the rave is a ritual to complete the job, give them shape-shifting powers, etc. – generally, upgrade from the shareware version of vampirism. Of course, one of the vamps has a sister (Baruc) turn up – she looks like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, which is fairly appropriate, as she’s definitely not in Kansas any more. And their creator, Mr. Jones (Lamas), from whom they escaped, is keen to reel them back in…
★★★★
The history of cinema has provoked many furious arguments as to which is better. Dracula or Frankenstein? Moore or Connery? Alien or Predator? And now we can add another to the list: tank-top or bustier? For we have not one, but two action heroines here, both finely-honed killing machines, with slightly different though similarly-slutty tastes in clothing. That really tells you all you need to know about this sequel, which never lets practical issues like plot – or costume – get in the way of the gratuitous violence.
The tactic here was simple and clear. Keep all the good stuff from the original, e.g. Milla Jovovich, zombie dobermans, and throw a few new elements in, this time including some stuff which, unlike Jovovich’s character, Alice, actually has a significant connection to the game. Hence, you get Jill Valentine (Guillory), a special forces chick who, in most other movies, would be the heroine, but is here largely to show you how Alice v2.0 has been improved beyond human. It’s reminiscent of how Ripley, by Alien Resurrection, had partly been transformed into what she was fighting, and Alice is now faster, stronger and cooler than she was last time – which is something of an achievement in itself.
Or at least, mostly solidly – let’s get the criticism out of the way first. Witt wants to stick the camera right in there, when what we want to do is fully appreciate the grace and athleticism of the heroines, not suffer from motion sickness. Also: hello, “R”-rating? Presumably this was for the language, topless undead hookers, and Milla’s scarily-large nipples (Chris pointed out they’re almost larger than her breasts), because it certainly wasn’t for the gore. These monsters were almost bloodless, even when shot through the head or exploded by hand-grenade – the latter would seem dangerous when you’re dealing with a highly-infectious, fluid-borne disease, but I’m quibbling here.
As mentioned, the undead attack canines are also back, and just as bad as before; this time, it’s mostly Valentine who has to deal with them, at least until the end, when Alice effortlessly one-ups her rival yet again. We briefly muttered “catfight!” under our breath, and it’d certainly have been fun to see Jill and Alice go toe-to-toe, but the outcome of that would be so predictable – Alice would win, without even breaking sweat – that its omission is understandable. The supporting characters do their job adequately; Mike Epps is the comic relief, something not really present in the first film, and manages the tricky task of doing the job without becoming annoying. Oded Fehr is somewhat irrelevant as a soldier also after the scientist’s daughter, while Sandrine Holt, playing journalist Terri Morales, is understandably overshadowed by Jill and Alice. On the Umbrella side…blah evil corporate drone, blah misunderstood scientist blah, blah. We don’t care – and nor should we.
If you’ve been thinking, “What I want is a cheap monster movie set in the fetish community,” this one’s for you. Crime scene photographer Daniel (Bilancio) discovers his video camera can see ugly little creatures, which have been slaughtering S+M fans as they engage in their games. Turns out they belong to Darlinda (Walton), an evil dominatrix who keeps a tentacled monster in a box; it gives birth to the little critters, and she uses the placentas to make a drug. Can he convince others of their existence before his girlfriend (and nice dominatrix, contradiction in terms though that may seem) Divinity (Pursley) gets eaten at the big S+M party? Which, despite a sleeve to the contrary, is actually the only scene in which Strain and the Porcelain Twinz appear.
I’m still trying to work out what the title actually means; it certainly bears no relevance to the film. More generaly, the biggest point of interest is its similarity to Blade 2, which took the basic concept (hunt for the carrier of a virus that turns its victim into bald, psychotic bloodsuckers) and did a lot more with its Eastern European setting. Henstridge is Delon, a policewoman who has her partner dismembered while they search a house, and Lambert leads the backup team – they follow their target into some vents which connect to an old prison, and where they rapidly become the prey. All this is set just outside a post-apocalyptic (plague, specifically) Boston – though the cop cars have ‘POLICIA’ on them. There’s also a subplot about Delon’s son, and a black-market passport she bought for him, which is of no significance whatsoever, and is probably there only to get the running time up to feature length (and at 76 minutes, only barely!).
Shot in what looks like four rooms, it’s up to director Pyun to make the most of a higher-profile cast than he usually manages – unfortunately, he fails, though I liked the snap-zoom technique applied to bullet hits. This is straightforward ‘spam in a tunnel’ cinema, with little tension, character, or anything else that might elevate this above the mundane. Henstridge, bless her, does what she can, and comes over like a grubby version of Lara Croft; her undeniable action heroine potential has so far been wasted in stuff like this or the lame She Spies. Partly shot in the capital of Herzegovina, Mostar, the “just-bombed” look is likely genuine, from a conflict that only ended the previous year; it may be exploitative, but at least Pyun brought employment to the locals. I imagine he’s now scouting locations in Kabul and Baghdad.