REVIEW: Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Well, the Oscars were on last night, and since I was punishing them for completely overlooking Sky Captain, I watched "Resident Evil: Apocalypse." Turns out I was really punishing myself.
Essentially picking up where the first one left off, "RE:A" continues on its task of inducing ADHD in viewers and sealing the crypt of bullet-time-oriented action special effects. I think that's actually the plot of the movie, but it's hard to tell, since everytime exposition burst into frame in a slow-motion, CGI-blurred ecstacy, my brain turned off and my girlfriend had to slap me in order to get me back to consciousness. Something about showing 24 unique shots per second makes my brain go all mushy.
Back in the first part, the laughably evil Umbrella Corporation's secret underground complex, the Hive, was the scene of an 'accident' which let loose the horrible T-Virus, which reanimates dead cells. This turned everybody into zombies and monsters and computer graphics, and there were some people being chased around inside the Hive, including Milla Jovavich. She's back for round two, playing the same character (this time genetically mutated by the T-Virus), and now the crap in the Hive has reached the surface of Raccoon City. That's bad for all the residents of the city, considering that the Umbrella Corporation won't let them leave. Umbrella claims it's a measure to stop the contamination, but apparently it's just to be able to test their Evil Nemesis mutants against humans and zombies. (Perhaps "Evil" is not part of the title of the program, but in a movie where they're portrayed as being what one review called "implausibly evil," the lack of inclusion is a surprise. Also: lack of wiry black mustaches to twirl.)
Stuck in the city with Milla are Jill Valentine, a rogue Special Tactics And Rescue Squad cop; Carlos, a regular cop with lots of stubble; Nicholai, a Russian cop that once played Farkus in "A Christmas Story"; the black cop, who has so little characterization that I can't even figure out his name when looking at the IMDB listing; and L.J., the civilian, who was the only part of the movie I liked, because he made me laugh about four times. Their mission: find an Umbrella Corp scientist's daughter, in exchange for getting past the city-wide quarantine. The problem: the city will be nuked at dawn, there are hundreds of thousands of zombies in their way, there's a big Nemesis monster stalking them, and the script is awful. And I mean awful, in italics. At least you can shoot the zombies, but you're stuck with the script, and this script is like resurrected bits of Romero films jumbled together in the least-moving ways possible.
Example: the priest in the church, who was keeping some woman zombie tied to a chair and was feeding her bits of people. Why? Dunno. Who was the woman? Dunno. Was there any relationship implied? Not really. Where'd he get the body parts, considering this was something like 14 hours into the contamination? No clue. I guess this scene was supposed to elicit sympathy for a man whose friend/wife/love died and was reanimated, but since it gave the audience absolutely no reason to give a rat's pitootie about him, it didn't work -- good thing the entire scene lasted a grand total of twenty seconds. For a much better version of the same scene, see the "Dawn of the Dead" remake.
Next, after Jill Valentine ices both priest and zombie, the reporter woman decides for absolutely no apparent reason that she can't stand hiding out in the church, and runs and opens the door. Why? Because it was in the script. Why hadn't they already barricaded the door? Because it wasn't in the script. Why was the guy in the church pissed off that three armed cops came to hole up with him and protect him? In the script. Why would Jill Valentine send a reporter who'd never used a gun before off on her own in a zombie-infested building? In script. See where this is going? No one in the movie acts like a human being. The only people in the movie that act in any plausible manner are the dead people that are shot in the head, and all they have to do is not move.
Coupled with bad screenwriting is bad directing, and this one's got it in spades. I don't mind flashy directing; I don't even mind MTV-style editing, because I think it's got a time and a place, and I understand that sometimes it works. But there's a point where the cuts are so fast, and so inept, that I can't even tell what's happening. There were multiple times in the church during the fights with the Lickers when I had no idea what was going on; all I knew is that things were moving. At the end, when Alice is killing all the Umbrella helicopter guards, I was afraid she'd accidentally killed the cameraman, judging by the erratic 'style' of holding the goddamned camera. It was like trying to watch a movie while two people on either side of you keep slapping your head in opposite directions. I guess it's a bad enough movie experience to watch one where the plot makes no sense (like shortcuts through cemeteries), but to watch one where the nonsense plot is worsened by incomprehensible direction is painful.
Suffice to say, watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" was a lot like drinking meth-laced coffee while watching your meth-enhanced friend play 'Simon.' There are lots of pretty colors and loud sounds, and if that's good enough for you, so be it. The DVD comes with two discs, one entirely filled with special features, including 22 deleted scenes. Maybe those were the good ones.
Essentially picking up where the first one left off, "RE:A" continues on its task of inducing ADHD in viewers and sealing the crypt of bullet-time-oriented action special effects. I think that's actually the plot of the movie, but it's hard to tell, since everytime exposition burst into frame in a slow-motion, CGI-blurred ecstacy, my brain turned off and my girlfriend had to slap me in order to get me back to consciousness. Something about showing 24 unique shots per second makes my brain go all mushy.
Back in the first part, the laughably evil Umbrella Corporation's secret underground complex, the Hive, was the scene of an 'accident' which let loose the horrible T-Virus, which reanimates dead cells. This turned everybody into zombies and monsters and computer graphics, and there were some people being chased around inside the Hive, including Milla Jovavich. She's back for round two, playing the same character (this time genetically mutated by the T-Virus), and now the crap in the Hive has reached the surface of Raccoon City. That's bad for all the residents of the city, considering that the Umbrella Corporation won't let them leave. Umbrella claims it's a measure to stop the contamination, but apparently it's just to be able to test their Evil Nemesis mutants against humans and zombies. (Perhaps "Evil" is not part of the title of the program, but in a movie where they're portrayed as being what one review called "implausibly evil," the lack of inclusion is a surprise. Also: lack of wiry black mustaches to twirl.)
Stuck in the city with Milla are Jill Valentine, a rogue Special Tactics And Rescue Squad cop; Carlos, a regular cop with lots of stubble; Nicholai, a Russian cop that once played Farkus in "A Christmas Story"; the black cop, who has so little characterization that I can't even figure out his name when looking at the IMDB listing; and L.J., the civilian, who was the only part of the movie I liked, because he made me laugh about four times. Their mission: find an Umbrella Corp scientist's daughter, in exchange for getting past the city-wide quarantine. The problem: the city will be nuked at dawn, there are hundreds of thousands of zombies in their way, there's a big Nemesis monster stalking them, and the script is awful. And I mean awful, in italics. At least you can shoot the zombies, but you're stuck with the script, and this script is like resurrected bits of Romero films jumbled together in the least-moving ways possible.
Example: the priest in the church, who was keeping some woman zombie tied to a chair and was feeding her bits of people. Why? Dunno. Who was the woman? Dunno. Was there any relationship implied? Not really. Where'd he get the body parts, considering this was something like 14 hours into the contamination? No clue. I guess this scene was supposed to elicit sympathy for a man whose friend/wife/love died and was reanimated, but since it gave the audience absolutely no reason to give a rat's pitootie about him, it didn't work -- good thing the entire scene lasted a grand total of twenty seconds. For a much better version of the same scene, see the "Dawn of the Dead" remake.
Next, after Jill Valentine ices both priest and zombie, the reporter woman decides for absolutely no apparent reason that she can't stand hiding out in the church, and runs and opens the door. Why? Because it was in the script. Why hadn't they already barricaded the door? Because it wasn't in the script. Why was the guy in the church pissed off that three armed cops came to hole up with him and protect him? In the script. Why would Jill Valentine send a reporter who'd never used a gun before off on her own in a zombie-infested building? In script. See where this is going? No one in the movie acts like a human being. The only people in the movie that act in any plausible manner are the dead people that are shot in the head, and all they have to do is not move.
Coupled with bad screenwriting is bad directing, and this one's got it in spades. I don't mind flashy directing; I don't even mind MTV-style editing, because I think it's got a time and a place, and I understand that sometimes it works. But there's a point where the cuts are so fast, and so inept, that I can't even tell what's happening. There were multiple times in the church during the fights with the Lickers when I had no idea what was going on; all I knew is that things were moving. At the end, when Alice is killing all the Umbrella helicopter guards, I was afraid she'd accidentally killed the cameraman, judging by the erratic 'style' of holding the goddamned camera. It was like trying to watch a movie while two people on either side of you keep slapping your head in opposite directions. I guess it's a bad enough movie experience to watch one where the plot makes no sense (like shortcuts through cemeteries), but to watch one where the nonsense plot is worsened by incomprehensible direction is painful.
Suffice to say, watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" was a lot like drinking meth-laced coffee while watching your meth-enhanced friend play 'Simon.' There are lots of pretty colors and loud sounds, and if that's good enough for you, so be it. The DVD comes with two discs, one entirely filled with special features, including 22 deleted scenes. Maybe those were the good ones.
