Tuesday, 19 October 2004
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Never let it be said that I'm not pig-headed obstinate when I want to be. Well, I don't think that too many people would say that about me. But now you can insert another word somewhere in that sentence's grammar tree: "stupid."
I knew that Resident Evil: Apocalypse - the second, sad heap of narrative rubble that passes for a cinematic adaptation of the eponymous video game series - would be stupid. Professional reviewers told me. Game industry writers told me. Friends told me. Friends of friends told me. Strangers on the street practically bowled me over to tell me.
So it's small wonder that I have no one but myself to blame for seeing this film - which, in a sad comment on my social life, essentially amounted to my first "movie meal" after a two or three week-long fast. In a way, you could equate it with a man condemned to death choosing mac 'n' cheese - made from the box - as his last meal.
But hey, I thought to my self, it'll have two hot, gun-toting babes who kick ass. Sure, as expected they'd be surrounded by the prerequisite melange of Eurotrash accents and indeterminate Canadian shoot locations. But at least there would be two hotties. And if that wasn't enough, they would be hot.
Thus began my downfall.
True babedom was severely lacking in this film, aside from some clumsy pandering to the Madonna-whore hangups of most adolescent males (er, well, more like "bitch-whore" in the case of the film), the demographic whose bubbling testosterone makes up pretty much the entire target audience. The few, scattered women present off-screen were apparently these ambulant hormones' poor girlfriends, who to the one were doubtlessly fomenting their plans for revenge, the kind that involve "Sex in the City" marathons and conversations about what their man-child was really thinking the next time he replies "nothin'."
And I feel for these troubled souls, puppets of their own sex drives, I truly do. I remember the days when chemistry controlled my actions - literally dictated them, like some lurching toddler at the controls of a remote-controlled car. I remember them like, well, like tonight when I went to see this film.
But that doesn't excuse what appeared on the screen. Like I said, the babe aspect was sub-par, action-wise and visually (superficial, but true). In fact Sienna Guillory, holding the keystone role of Babe #2 to Milla Jovovich's Ur-babe, seemed to change mid-film. Physically, even - like she'd aged a few months in the space of a couple of frames, or had the shape of her face shift along with her character's previously acerbic personality. For literally seconds, I thought her stunt double (maybe even the computer-generated one) had replaced her after she'd come to her senses and stormed out of the film. But no, all sources point to it being her throughout. I guess even hard-ass babes are hard-pressed for pocket change.
Not that the unattained babe-nirvana was really at fault. At best, a Milla in full-on babitude would merely have been a band-aid on the gaping wound of a film. Indeed, its plot seemed to eschew all form of logic and reason, making cognitive leaps that would be at home in the plot lines of a video game, or a few Japanese films that I've seen.
Normally, I'd blame my dissatisfaction - other than that in the babe department - on Paul W.S. Anderson. This young man - not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, the more respectable driving force behind Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love - is credited (and I use the term loosely) as this film's screenwriter. You may also know him as the director of another suck-fest adaptation, Alien vs. Predator. (Thus laying bare my prejudices, since I haven't even seen the latter film.)
But no, the direction and the editing were even more confused than the plot - jerking hither and fro, in some sympathetic synchronicity with the countless number of mutant zombies present within. And the characterization? I think you'd have to teach the word to a few involved in making the movie before you could ask them that question. Not that I'd expect Oscar material here, but still...
Oh, since I bring up plot and characterization in the same breath, may I just pose one question? (Aside from that one, which was mostly rhetorical.) A mini-skit clad, gun-toting, high-heeled ex-cop I can accept (whose full back story, like many points, is left for us to infer - I like the version involving... no wait, I won't subject you to my daydreams). Tough-as-nails? Sure. Spin kicks and Kung Fu grip? John Woo has wet dreams about less.
But isn't there a point in Hollywood anymore when someone - anyone stands up and says, "Wait! Enough with this hackery. Let's make a few departures from the video game back story, acceptable to the core audience, yet helpful for the 99.9% of the world who isn't familiar with the scenario and the characters from repeatedly stabbing at the controller buttons to bypass the game's 30-second intro sequence." Guess not. Too occupied by playing with whatever their hack-money will buy nowadays.
Meanwhile, my own time - though not money (but who's counting!) - was spent in a dark theater with other, similarly stupid people. And their girlfriends, who were also probably stupid. And we all sat through a parade of ideas that surely took the express train from video game land (next stop, Nocluesville).
And we feasted together at that table, laden as it was with plot morsels such as trigger-happy, leggy cops who inexplicably dress like hookers, and companies who can nuke a city with impunity (but only after running experiments on its apparently incommunicado citizens). You know, I'll have to remember that city planning trick: when building an urban center, make it accessible solely by one bridge because that apparently also cuts off all forms of communication, wireless and otherwise. Oh, and speak with a vaguely Dutch accent because that sounds cool, in an evil-cool kind of way.
This film, in brief, is suck. Pure suck. If it had a middle name, it would be "suck." So would its last name. And starting the whole name off would be, "suck." Its neighbors would be suck, and the children who didn't scramble to get out of its way would shout after it, "SUCK!" Like Midas, only not, anything that it touched would turn to suck.
This, of course, virtually guarantees a third entry in the series.
Since movie execs don't have to shoot for that magical number of episodes to reach the Promised Land of Syndication, I'm puzzled as to why. But if Milla looks at least half decent in it as she normally does, my few remaining active hormones will probably overpower any feeble struggle I put up and get me to see that one, too. Oh wait, there's your reason, right there.
Still, the words "hour and a half" do bring up one positive point to the film: it's almost short. I apologize, albeit halfheartedly, for not being able to say the same for this review.
1 / 5 : suck.