Tag: r

RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~

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★★★
“Harry Potter, with more lesbians.”

mnemosyne2There’s something to be said for not laying everything out on the line for your audience from the get-go, and only gradually revealing pertinent information. But do it too often, or for too long, and you run a significant risk of driving them away in bafflement. Such is probably the case here: for rather too long, it’s clear that the characters know a great deal more about what’s going on than the audience. The central character is Rin (Noto), a private investigator who, we soon discover, is immortal. We find this out because she keeps coming back after getting killed by Laura (Ohara), an assassin employed by the mysterious “Apos,” who thinks he/she is a god, and is intent on proving it. Turns out, this immortality is the result of Rin ingesting a spore from a tree known as Yggdrasil – yep, that’s ancient Norse. In Japan – which normal people can’t see. If a woman is infected, she becomes immortal. If a man does, he turns into an “angel”, a monster that hunts and eats the immortals, who have an irresistible urge to have sex with the angels.

There’s more. A lot more, spanning a century or so. Probably too much more than should be crammed in to six 45-minute episodes, but as I noted with AHS: Coven, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s fairly clear where it’s all going to end: a battle between Rin and He-who-must-not-be-named, Apos. Before we get there, however, there’s a lot of sex, much of it of the girl on girl variety, though with a significant quantity of BDSM as well, befitting is apparent origins on a Japanese version of Skinemax. That certainly makes this unsuitable for minors: some is necessary to the plot, but a lot of it feels more like fan service – a bit of a shame, because it needlessly devalues what’s a fairly intriguing concept, containing a good deal of imagination. Rin’s daily business, such as finding lost cats, always seems to end up dragging her into much more complex affairs, linked either to Apos or some big corporation.

Some of these are well done and are capable of standing alone, such as the third episode, which covers biological weapons and human testing, still something of a taboo subject in Japan (Don’t mention Unit 731. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it).  However, the closer we get to the big bad, the more confusing and less interesting things become. One review put it beautifully: “It feels like you’re just watching the characters explain what the hell is going on, while raping and eating each other.” I think the creators are trying to up the ante, but there’s little or no emotional wallop to the sexual sadism, with the result that it becomes kinda dull. However, it does also play to anime’s strengths, in that whatever the mind conceive, can be depicted. If you don’t get a frisson when the angel wings start sprouting, you’re a more phlegmatic individual than I. Overall, it’s worth a look, though you may want to track down the episode synopses first, and use them as a cheat-sheet.

Dir: Shigeru Ueda
Star (voice): Mamiko Noto, Rie Kugimiya, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Sayaka Ohara

[Random amusement: while looking for pics, I did a Google Search for images with “mnemosyne anime”. One of these things is not like the other. #AmyPondWTF?]

Ready to Fly

  By

★★★½
“Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

readytoflyI took some skiing lessons back when I was at university, on the dry slope, but my sole experience of doing it on actual snow was a one-day trip: the real thing is considerably colder, faster and a great deal harder, let me assure you. So, the prospect of whizzing down a ramp, going off the end at 50-60 mph, and flying through the air for the length of a football field or thereabout… Well, anyone who does ski-jumping has my respect – and all the more so when, like the women in this documentary, as well as fighting gravity, they have to go up against the (literal) old boys’ network of the International Olympic Committee, who had succeeded in keeping women’s ski-jumping off the program, making it the sole “men only” sport in the winter games.

The documentary focuses, in particular, on Lindsey Van, who was the first ever women’s world champion, and was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the, IOC to force them to include ski-jumping in the 2010 Vancouver games. The judge agreed there was discrimination, but refused to make the IOC comply – ironic that, going into the Olympics, Van actually held the record for the longest jump on the hill where the games took place. Lindsey briefly quit the pastime to which she had dedicated her life, in disgust at that decision.

However, she couldn’t stay away for very long, and to date has gone through four knee surgeries and a ruptured spleen in pursuit of her sport, while also struggling to get sufficient funding, in part due to the lack of Olympic acceptance. But the IOC agreed to consider ski-jumping again for the 2014 games in Russia – providing the 2011 women’s world championships are deemed of acceptable standard. Will the fly-girls get their day? Or as one of their former vice-presidents hints, could the committee bear a grudge against the sport, for the embarrassment of the lawsuit with which they were targeted?

To be honest, there’s no particular drama here, since a quick Google will tell you that, yes, women’s ski-jumping is indeed in the 2014 edition, which start next week [making it particularly appropriate to write about this film now]. However, it’s still a solid and generally engrossing documentary, about a sport that certainly deserves more coverage than it has received, though this seems rather too reliant on over-dramatic music, and Nyad’s narration is unremarkable. It’s at its best when not actually on the slopes, presenting Van and her team-mates as people; never mind the jumping, perhaps the most heroic thing is her donation of bone marrow to save the life of someone whom she doesn’t even know. Her low-key approach to that can only be admired.

I’m not a great winter sports person, and my interest in the upcoming Olympics is generally likely to be light. But I think I might just tune in on February 11, and witness history in the making. I’d recommend checking this film out as well, because it’ll probably inspire you in a similar way – though you still won’t be seeing me on a chair-lift any time soon!

Dir: William A. Kerig
Star: Lindsey Van, Jessica Jerome, Alissa Johnson, Diana Nyad (narrator)

Raze

  By

★★★★
“Raze-ing the standard.”

It’s interesting to read other reviews, which span the range from “This ugly, dull and idiotic actioner doesn’t know if it wants be fun or grim. It winds up simply bring deplorable exploitation,” to “an incredible action film… giving viewers exactly what it promises to give without pulling any punches or wasting time. I absolutely loved it.” This seems to be one of the cases where your preexisting mindset may determine your reaction, as much as any qualities of the movie. There’s not really any other way I can see, to explain a reaction like the former. I mean, “deplorable exploitation”? Really? There’s no nudity at all, and indeed, the basic plot is familiar from any number of films with male protagonists, which somehow managed to avoid such sniffy critiques. Rather than JCVD, say, being forced to kick arse in an underground fighting tournament, it’s Zoë Bell. I’m down with this, and also find the complete lack of any romantic interest, for example, a refreshing change [as contrast, we watched this the same day as Killer Women, which wheeled out so many clichés, it needed a separate trailer for them].

It does throw something of a left-turn at the beginning, starting with Jamie (Rachel Nichols) waking to find herself in an underground bunker. More casual viewers – which would not be anyone here, we trust – will assume she’s the heroine. They’re in for a nasty shock, as she meets another prisoner, Sabrina (Bell), and in the ensuing fight, Jamie’s head is reduced to something resembling an uncooked pizza, in both shade and texture. Sabrina is apparently ahead of the curve, being aware of what’s going on. 50 women have been hand-picked for their fighting ability, and have been abducted to take part in a series of fights to the death, their participation ensured by threats to their loved ones [it’s implied that women are more susceptible even though, for example, Sabrina gave up the daughter at risk for adoption over a decade ago]. This is under the control of Joseph (Jones) and his equally-nutty wife Elizabeth (Fenn), who appear to have been at this for some time, providing viewing pleasure of a select group of spectators, though the logistics are left kinda vague.

Of the 50, we see only one small corner, less than ten of the women, focusing on Sabrina as she makes her way through the competition. It’s obvious from the first time we see the others who her nemesis is going to be. Phoebe (Marshall) appears to be genuinely enjoying the chance to unleash her inner psychopath, and to some extent, you’re left to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the inevitable face-off to occur. The other women, including fellow Death Proof alumni, Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms, aren’t given much more than extended cameos: while still personalities to some degree, these are quick sketches, not enough to do more than trigger a vague burst of sympathy, before their lifeless corpses are being dragged out of the stone-lined ring. However, Sabrina vs. Phoebe is far from being the end of the matter. Indeed, it’s thereafter that things become most interesting, as we eventually enter what the inter-title accurately calls “Sabrina vs. everybody.” This includes an amusing, brief appearance by Saw‘s Leigh Whannell, who disses Bell’s home country, and pays the price, almost before he can finish the sentence.

If the action is good to very good, it’s just a little disappointing, in part I suspect because none of the other women are up to Bell’s high standard of work. I should stress, they certainly don’t suck: however, the gap between her and them is obvious, and a longer climax, pitting Sabrina against guards closer to her skill-set would have been welcome. The fights are also much of a muchness in terms of style: while the tournament cliché often has different martial-arts forms battling for dominance, the cliché makes sense, as it allows for variety. Here, not so much, and the uniform look of white vest and sweat-pants worn by all competitors also tends to leave them merging in to each other as you look back. That said, they’re brutal to the max, Waller keeping the camera in very tight to enhance this aspect. There’s one moment, involving a face being repeatedly introduced to the wall, which reminded me of The Raid, and any comparison to the best action film of the last decade is a good thing. However, it’s perhaps telling that I couldn’t tell you without checking, which two competitors were fighting at the time.

slice-razeOn the other hand, the acting was certainly much better than in the male versions of the storyline mentioned earlier. You’ve seen Jones before, but probably under make-up, e.g. as Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films, and he chews the scenery at just the right level of intensity here for an insane villain, with Fenn not far behind, and as much fun to watch. [I was somewhat reminded of the antagonist in ferocious French horror film Martyrs: both have their own, vastly twisted agenda, and don’t give a damn who gets hurt as a result] I already mentioned Marshall, but it’s Bell who gets the most screen time, and the most difficult role, having to provide the film with an emotional heart while smashing heads, and not having much dialogue to speak of. Instead, it’s mostly a physical performance – which may work to Bell’s advantage. Regardless, I’d say it succeeds, particularly on a visceral level: if you don’t cheer when Sabrina charges out of the cell, on her way to the long-awaited, no-holds barred confrontation with Phoebe, you’re far more phlegmatic than I.

The makers have said they weren’t going for any deep philosophical or moral meaning, and just wanted a female take on a male genre. Inevitably, it’s going to be treated as more by a lot of people, and I suspect it’ll end up being a cinematic Rorschach test, where people will see whatever they want to see. Looking for feminism? You’ll find it. Expecting exploitation? It’s there. However, I’m happy to take the end result purely at face value, and considering the budget was below a million dollars, can only conclude that – much like Bell herself – it punches well above its weight. There will be bigger action heroine films this year, certainly. Will there be any better ones? We’ll have to wait and see, since this has set the bar at a decent height, particularly for early January.

Dir: Josh C. Waller
Star: Zoe Bell, Doug Jones, Rebecca Marshall, Sherilyn Fenn

"There will be bigger action heroine films this year, certainly. Will there be any better ones? We’ll have to wait and see, since this has set the bar at a decent height, particularly for early January."
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Resident Evil: Retribution

  By

★★★★
“Games without frontiers.”

While being (again) largely disappointed by the previous entry, Afterlife, I wrote: “There’s really only one reason we bother with this series: to see Milla Jovovich kicking righteous ass. Everything else is – or should be – secondary.” And that’s why this is the best Resident Evil movie in eight years. It may not be anything significant in the plot department. There are not hidden depths or great moments of character revelation. But it does contain entirely acceptable amounts of Milla Jovovich Kicking Righteous Ass, and succeeds as an entertainment spectacle, almost entirely due to this.

Though actually, this is almost a “greatest hits” package, especially in terms of participants. Not seen since the first film, are Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez) and James Shade (Colin Salmon). Apocalypse brought us Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) and Carlos Olivieira (oded Fehr), while Extinction introduced the audience to Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and K-Mart (Spencer Locke). Finally, Afterlife was the debuts of Luther West (Boris Kodjoe) and Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller). But they are all present for this fifth edition: though the focus is kept, as it should be, on Alice (Jovovich). The others all play their parts – notably Valentine, who is now a brainwashed toy of the Umbrella Corporation, out to hunt Alice down – but it’s the MJKRA show, all the way.

The series has had a tendency to end its entries with a wallop, right from the original, with Alice discovering the infection has escaped the Hive. Part 4 was no exception, with Alice and assorted survivors on a supertanker, only for an F-sized swarm of attack helicopter to hove into view, commanded by Valentine. This takes off from there, but begins with Alice plunging into the water, only to rewind in slow-motion to the arrival of the helicopters, then playing forward again. It’s a striking sequence, that certainly hits the ground running. It ends with Alice waking to find herself in a suburban house, with a husband and daughter…or is she? Turns out it’s all an Umbrella simulation: she has been captured, and they still want her, even if she’s no longer the superhuman she was.

There’s an unlikely ally, who releases Alice, and tells her she has two hours to meet up with a rescue team coming in to the under-Siberian complex from the outside, and get out of the place before it all goes boom. To do so, both she and they have to make their way through the various simulated arenas, designed to demonstrate the T-virus effects in Tokyo, Moscow, suburbia, etc. All the while, naturally, Valentine and her many, many Umbrella minions are on their respective tails. It could hardly be a more video-gamesque storyline, and is pretty scant. Still, in an action pic, it’s better to be too simple than too clever (I recently watched both The Raid: Redemption and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and will take dumb over aspirations to smart, any day!), providing you use the room freed up for plenty of MJKRA.

It might be wise for Jovovich to contemplate retirement from the series. After all, she turned 37 earlier this month, and there are few things sadder than an action hero/ine desperately clinging on, past their prime (see also, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning). She’s not quite there yet, being still capable of holding her own, but there does seem to be rather more wirework and greenscreen-fu here than in previous editions. Director Anderson. a.k.a. Mr. Milla Jovovich distracts us by putting his wife in a costume whose S/M inspiration is so obvious, even another character comments on it. On the other hand, we could probably have done without the efforts to imbue Alice with some kind of maternal instincts [inevitably inviting comparisons with Aliens].

The net result is something which doesn’t so much need to be watched, just simply pass in front of a receptive pair of eyeballs. As mentioned, there is not much new here, Anderson happy to recycle the best characters and monsters from the first four movies [though, regrettably, there are no zombie canines for Milla to engage in thigh-powered neck-snapping]. Certainly, it’s lazy film-making, but actually, that’s less of an insult than it sounds. It’s more like going round a friend’s house and he knows, without asking, to provide chips and beer. Sure, it can legitimately be described as lazy hospitality – but when this is just what you want, somehow it seems churlish to complain.

A sixth entry is already mooted, and Miila says that will be her last in the series [hang on: didn’t see say that after part 2?], with a reboot being considered by the producers beyond that. This decision may come as a surprise, if you look at the distinctly underwhelming US box-office figures: only $42 million, barely more than the original, even with a decade of inflation plus the cost of 3D tickets in its favor. However, as noted last time, the meat here is not North America, but overseas. This racked up more than $175 million there, easily enough to justify a further sequel. And, for the first time in a while, I am actually enthusiastic about the prospect: hopefully, Jovovich will go out with a bang like this one, not a whimper like the preceding two.

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson
Star: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Ali Larter

"Something which doesn’t so much need to be watched, just simply pass in front of a receptive pair of eyeballs."

Robogeisha

  By

★★★½
“‘I, too, have an ass-sword.’ That quote about sums this up.”

Having been largely unimpressed by Iguchi’s other work, which seemed to have little to offer except megabytes of digital blood, I likely wouldn’t have watched this except an accident involving beer and my Apple TV remote has stopped me from much of my usual viewing. I could still stream from Netflix, however, though when I saw this was dubbed in English, I almost didn’t bother. But surprisingly, this has easily the best plot of his movies, with a slyly-twisted sense of imagination that’s very effective.

It centres on sisters Yoshie (Kiguchi) and Kikue (Hasebe), the latter a geisha who is cruel and vindictive to her younger sister. They are taken by Hikaru Kageno (Saito), the scion of Kageno Steel, to his castle and inducted as recruits into a geisha army, which he is using to take out opponents to his plans for national domination. Yoshie has an innate skill for assassination, soon surpassing Kikeu, who begs Hikaru to “upgrade” her mechanically, so she can best her sister. Yoshie, to keep up, is similarly enhanced.

The scenario shifts when Yoshie is sent to take out a group of senior citizens and discovers they are the families of other members of the geisha army – far from being willing volunteers, they were abducted and brainwashed by Kageno and his father. After narrowly escaping a suicide mission, Yoshie switches sides and joins the senior citizens, who add further to her artificial armoury. It’s up to her to stop Kageno, before he can drop a massive nuclear weapon into Mount Fuji, completing his plan.

This is certainly out there, but is a good deal lighter in tone than expected, often crossing the border into an outright silliness that is actually endearing. For instance the whose “castle-shaped robot” concept is beautifully ludicrous, not least as the building rampages around, whacking building that then spurt blood, for no readily apparent reason. There’s also shades of 60’s spy thrillers like Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs in the basic concept of the geisha army, though there’s still a certain ass-fetishism which I could have done without – swords and shuriken both come flying out of there.

Complaining that this is, to quote Monty Python, “too silly,” would be missing the point, and the fight sequences are well put-together, not least when involving Kageno’s lead henchwomen, the Tengu Twins. At over 100 minutes, it is likely a little too long and these are less performances, than hangers, on which to place lurid visuals of questionable taste. However, you will want to keep watching, simply to see what the heck Iguchi will come up with next.

Dir: Noboru Iguchi
Star: Aya Kiguchi, Hitomi Hasebe, Takumi Saito, Taro Shigaki

Running Delilah

  By

★★
“Cast better than the material, in female version of Robocop.”

Agent Delilah (Cattrall) is undercover investigating arms dealer Alec Kasharian (Voyagis), and his connection to Palestinian terrorists [this was 1993, when people were concerned about such things]. At the behest of her handler Paul (Zane), she copies a floppy-disk containing vital information [I repeat, this was 1993, when an entire arms dealer’s business would apparently fit on a floppy!], but she’s discovered, shot multiple times, and left for dead. Paul drags her Swiss cheese-like body back to a secret government lab, where she is repaired, upgraded and generally enhanced in terms of speed, power and other abilities.

Initially, this is the subject of some emotional trauma, as she is understandably shocked to discover a Terminator arm where her own used to be. So she breaks out, roaming the streets, and proving to be a nasty surprise for sleazy low-lives. Though her creators probably need to work on the insulation thing, since her arm seems to short-circuit in the rain. That’s government work for you. Naturally, she eventually gets her act together, and the agency boss (Rigg) sends her and Paul out, to bring Kasharian to the justice he so richly deserves. This being a TV movie – or perhaps a pilot, it’s not clear – there are no prizes for guessing how this pans out.

And that’s the problem. No prizes, no surprises either, and precious little in the way of invention or inspired execution that could lift this up above the humdrum, with director Franklin (best known for Psycho II) unable to add enough impetus to proceedings. The only thing that redeems this are the decent performances from the leads, who manage to give this more impact than the material deserves – it was particularly cool to see Rigg, who played one of the prototypical action heroines. Emma Peel, in the mid-60’s. Any scenes that are memorable, such as Delilah shattering all the windows in a hotel, make absolutely no sense, and the parts that make sense, aren’t exactly memorable.

Dir: Richard Franklin
Star: Kim Cattrall, Billy Zane, Yorgo Voyagis, Diana Rigg

Raging Angels

  By

★★
“Because “Peeved CFOs” wouldn’t be as catchy a title.”

Despite the name, there isn’t much raging, especially in the first half, which is more about the struggle for ownership of a company. It starts with an attack on the current chairman and his wife Bin (Ng) while on a trip to the Phillippines, after which she takes over the company. That doesn’t last long, as Tammy (Cheung) has designs on its finances, aiming to asset-strip it for his own purposes and divest Bin of her shareholding. To this end, he frames her and Chin (Leung), her best friend who is the wife of the company’s accountant, for drug smuggling: Chin takes the rap and is sent to 10 years jail. It takes all Bin’s resources to get her out, and when he does, Tammy sends his henchmen to kill their mother [ok, its not clear whose mother]. Bin and Chin arrive just too late, but find the minions’ vehicle, full of weapons… Yep, finally, it’s raging time!

When it finally kicks in, it’s certainly good stuff, to the extent that you wonder why they basically didn’t bother for the first 75 minutes: the only notable action heroine sequence to that point sees Ng take on a predatory lesbian and her gang in prison. However, it loses half a star due to the action, for no apparent reason, being shot in a crappy strobey fashion, dropping frames here and there: I wondered whether it was just my dubious copy (which also had audio in two different languages simultaneously), but I’ve seen a couple of other reviews that mention it, so I’m thinking it was a deliberate stylistic choice, albeit one we could have well done without. Ng and Leung both still have the moves, though they are unable to dispatch Tammy by themselves and have to rely on male help; further debit there.

Not to be confused with the Sean Patrick Flannery pick – unlike Amazon did! – the film’s main mistake is taking a good cast, and failing to play to their strengths. Which would be kicking ass, in case you were wondering. The final reel shows the makers are aware of this, which simply begs the question, why wait so long? The performances aren’t bad, with both Leung and Ng are decent in their roles. However, it feels like having to eat an entire loaf of bread before getting a couple of slices of ham at the end. While you’re glad for the break, it doesn’t repay the effort.

Dir: Rickie Lau
Star: Carrie Ng, Jade Leung, Roy Cheung, Eddie Ko Hung

Requiem pour une Tueuse

  By

★★★
“Emotionally chilly, and not as clever as it thinks, but well-acted and shot.”

The French have a decent pedigree of action heroines, going back to Joan of Arc. Cinematically, the likes of Bloody Mallory, Adele Blanc-Sec, and one of the most influential of them all, Nikita, have kept the tricouleur flying. This is closest to the last-named, with Lucrece (Laurent) fed up of the assassin game, but talked into that old standby of the genre, one final mission, by her agent (Karyo, who of course was also in Nikita). This involves posing as a classical singer and taking part in a performance of Handel’s Messiah. For the target is the bass singer (Stills), whose Scottish distillery occupies land an oil company wants for their pipeline. Lucrece is pretty disenchanted with the whole thing, and this may explain why her early attempts mis-fire. Fortunately, the special agent (Cornillac) sent to track her down, is equally as unenthusiastic. But is Lucrece the only killer in play?

The picture is pretty misleading, since Lucrece never touches a gun the entire movie – she’s a poisons specialist. It’s pretty chilly, emotionally, but both Laurent and Cornillac do bring some humanity to their roles, and are both very watchable [there’s one scene between them that is particularly good]. It seems to be aiming for a Hitchcockian twistiness rather than an action-packed thrill-ride; it doesn’t quite pull this off, and you’re left to appreciate the Swiss scenery and the classical music more than the plot. It’s too heavy on the cliches of the genre, and feels more like a lazy effort to tidy up loose ends on a long-running TV series, than a solid standalone work – Lucrece’s relationship with her daughter seems particularly thrown in. A character like Lucrece would certainly have plenty of interesting stories to tell; this doesn’t seem to be one of the more memorable.

Dir: Jèrôme Le Gris
Star: Mèlanie Laurent, Clovis Cornillac, Tchéky Karyo, Christopher Stills

Resident Evil: Afterlife

  By

★★★
“Is There Life After Afterlife?”

Milla Jovovich, coming at you in three dimensions! Unfortunately, Chris and 3D movies do not play well with each other – as we discovered at Avatar, where the resulting motion sickness had her staring at the back of the seat in front, after the first twenty minutes. She understandably declined all invitations to see Afterlife in this mode, so please note that with regard to this review, we’re strictly discussing the 2-D version. Other reports generally indicate the 3-D is pretty spiffy, having actually been shot that way, rather than being some hacked conversion job like certain movies I could mention [cough-ClashoftheTitans-cough]. That said, we move on.

We keep bumping into the first Resident Evil movie, which has been on cable a lot lately, and I’m tending to think my 3 1/2-star review was an under-estimate. Maybe due to the underwhelming nature of the last couple of entries in the series, the original moves briskly, keeps a tight focus on proceedings, and has a nice character arc for Alice. I was hoping that the return of its creator, Paul W.S. Anderson, to writing and directing for this fourth installment would signal a return to this approach.

There’s really only one reason we bother with this series: to see Milla Jovovich kicking righteous ass. Everything else is – or should be – secondary. And for the first 15 minutes, it looked like this would indeed be a return to these basics, as Alice and an army of Alice-clones launched a righteous assault on the massive complex housing the Umbrella Corporation’s headquarters beneath Tokyo. It’s reminiscent of the lobby scene from The Matrix, with a swarm of Alice-alikes breaking in and hurling themselves against the guards like aggrieved lemmings, with no regard for their personal safety, as they try to take out Umbrella’s CEO’s Albert Wesker (Roberts).

It’s great: among the best scenes of the entire series, in fact. The bad news is, it’s also the best thing in the movie. The sequence would have made a great climax, but instead, everything thereafter feels like an anti-climax. Wesker escapes by helicopter, flipping the self-destruct switch and destroying the clones. However, the real Alice is aboard, and before the ‘copter crashes, he injects her with a serum that neutralizes the T-virus, rendering her human again. Boooooo-ring! Turns out they both survive the crash: quite why Wesker didn’t deal with her then, isn’t made clear. Alice heads to Alaska, in search of the haven called Arcadia where Claire Redfield (Larter) was heading at the end of the third film.

That turns out to be a red herring, but Alice does find Claire, albeit now controlled by an Umbrella device on her chest. Removing that, albeit at the cost of Claire’s memory, the pair fly back down the West coast, eventually locating a group of survivors bunkered down in an LA prison – Arcadia turns out to be the name of a boat, anchored just offshore. As the zombies break in, the survivors make their way towards the boat, with the help of a prisoner who turns out to be Chris (Miller), Claire’s brother. Reaching the Arcadia, they discover it’s a trap, designed to lure people to it for Umbrella’s research, with Wesker overseeing operations. He wants to assimilate (or “eat”) Alice; as the only person to successfully meld with the T-virus, he wants that ability to enhance his own superpowers.

There’s way too much moving about in underground darkness here, and elements are lobbed in from the video game, which make no sense in the context of the movie. For instance, some zombies now have their faces split open and become all tenticular: why, is never explained, and the CGI used here is less effective than the effects used for a similar concept in Blade II, almost a decade ago. There’s also the Executioner, a giant creature wielding an even-larger weapon: again, its presence from a cinematic perspective is completely unexplained. In short, the film just doesn’t make much sense, though admittedly, between the battles, there was precious little of interest going on to hold my attention.

Nor is there much feeling of threat to the characters, who cheat death with blithe abandon – the sense of “anyone can die, at any time” present in the original is all but gone. A case in point would be the leader of the survivors, who vanished from the film entirely as they make their way out of the prison, only to reappear, right at the end, to no point whatsoever. Chris Redfield is an almost entirely superfluous character; like the monsters mentioned above, he is apparently there, just so that fans of the game can go “Look! It’s Chris Redfield!” The rest of us…not so much. The whole subplot of Alice’s humanity being restored doesn’t go anywhere either; that may well be fortunate. In any case, by the end, she seems completely back to normal. Well, “normal” in the way we want to see, anyway.

Which brings me nicely to the action, and it is, as usual for the series, solid, meaning this is, overall, just worth the 92 minutes of your time it will take up. I think due to the 3-D, the editing is more restrained than it has been of late; indeed, there’s probably as much slow-motion as anything else. I particularly liked Alice’s fondness for loading her shotgun with coins – again, I suspect largely for 3-D purposes. There’s a nice tag-match between her, Claire and the Executioner, but the final face-off versus Wesker is largely forgettable. As usual, the film ends on an interesting note: this time, it’s the return of a character last seen in Apocalypse, who makes a cameo early in the end-credits, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them return.

Despite the 3-D, the movie was only a mediocre success here, but a much greater hit overseas. For perspective, the percentage of total box-office coming outside North America for the first three entries was fairly constant, at 61%, 60% and 66% respectively. Afterlife got an astonishing 80% of its takings in foreign territories, grossing $236 million there, compared to only $60m in the US, barely recovering its budget. That’s one of the highest ratios of the year, and has only been surpassed a handful of times this decade, by films with a broad Stateside release. It’s this success abroad which means a fifth installment is all but certain. And as long as they keep making them, we’ll keep watching, hoping the potential, seen in flashes, might be more fully realized. A script which makes sense on its own terms, and doesn’t bother pandering to gamers, would be a good start.

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson
Stars: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, Shawn Roberts

"As long as they keep making them, we’ll keep watching, hoping the potential, seen in flashes, might be more fully realized."

Reign of Assassins

  By

★½
“I liked it much better it the first time, when it was called Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

The most disappointing film of 2010? I went in with huge expectations, based on reviews that said, “The best swordplay film since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon..” O RLY? I know Crouching Tiger. Crouching Tiger is one of my favourite movies. And Reign of Assassins, you’re no Crouching Tiger. It’s a confused, poorly-shot mess that proved a struggle to endure and a challenge to stay awake, right from the opening lump of introduction. Stick with me for this synopsis. The remains of a Buddhist monk, split in two, are said to turn whoever has them into a kung-fu master. The Dark Stone gang, under the Wheel King (Wang), want to possess them, and get one half, but gang member Drizzle makes off with the body parts, undergoes plastic surgery that turns her into Michelle Yeoh and takes up a quiet life as a fabric seller. She meets and marries Jiang Asheng (Jung), until her secret identity is revealed in a bank raid, and the Dark Stone gang come after her again. However, turns out Jiang isn’t who he seems either…

While obviously, some suspension of disbelief is necessary when watching wuxia films, we’re expected to believe they had plastic surgery? And I thought it was supposed to take years off, not turn Kelly Lin (aged 34) into Yeoh (47). That kind of problem cripples the entire film, as does the leaden romance, with none of the passion seen in Tiger: instead, if we get Jiang offering to help close Drizzle’s stall when it rains once, we get it half a dozen times. Is she too dumb to get a damn canopy? Such thoughts interrupt your train of thought far too often, and as a result it fails to engage, with the bad guys a selection of one-dimensional stereotypes, such as Turquoise (Hsu), Drizzle’s replacement, who drops her clothes at the drop of…er, a cloth. Though her over-acting is at least fun to watch; we simply wanted the Wheel King to get some cough lozenges, his raspy voice being the most irritating since Christian Bale in The Dark Knight.

Much of this could be forgiven if the action was coherently put together, but it isn’t. Ang Lee was wise enough to step back, leave the camera rolling and let Yeoh and Zhang ZiYi do their thing. Neither director here exactly has a pedigree in the swordplay genre – and boy, does it show. Filmed with too many close-ups – it felt pan-and-scanned even though it wasn’t – and edited in such a choppy fashion, you have little clue what’s happening or who’s doing the fighting. Sitting through tedious relationship stuff, only to find the battles largely an incoherent mess, including mediocre CGI, was the final straw. Our interest, already flickering, was finally snuffed out.

Dir: Chao-Bin Su and John Woo
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Woo-sung Jung, Xueqi Wang, Barbie Hsu