#not saying chris is going to turn evil but the resemblance to wesker in the umbrella chronicles....it's a little eerie

[tiredsurvivoronmain]

I don't know what to say

[pixelgrotto]

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, interlude three

I just finished watching all of the Resident Evil movies I could get my hands on. When I told people I was doing this as the last part of my great year-long playthrough, they all let out groans and said something along the lines of, “Ugh, don’t you wanna end on a good note?” Undaunted by these words and fueled by my ability to tolerate crappy cinema, I moved forward, courageously making it through nine of these suckers...which, to be fair, ranged from surprisingly enjoyable to just as terrible as everyone warned me about. 

Before I begin, it’s important to note that we’re dealing with two separate film series here. There’s director Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil Hollywood films, which are the ones that most people know about. Then there are three Japanese-made CG movies that are canon and co-exist alongside the stories of the games. The Anderson movies are...mostly ass. The Japanese ones are okay. 

Let us start with the ass first. 

Resident Evil - The first RE film came out in 2002, which means that what little CG it has is laughably dated and it’s refreshingly small-scale when compared to its sequels. The movie’s a fan fiction remix of some themes from Resident Evil 1, except with none of the characters from the games present. Instead, we have Paul W.S. Anderson’s wife Milla Jovovich taking center stage as Alice, the former head of Umbrella security in a secret base called the Hive that goes to hell when some dude tries to steal viruses. The entirety of the action takes place in the Hive, and we get a surprisingly tiny number of monsters, with just your garden variety zombies, a few Cerberus and a single Licker showing up. Even though she does run up a wall and kick a Cerberus in the face, Alice is at her most realistic here (she turns into a dual wielding mutant with the ability to make the camera go into slow-motion whenever she wants in all the other films), there’s a nifty laser grid scene that all the sequels keep referencing when they want you to feel nostalgic, and the Hive’s sentient AI, the Red Queen, is compelling enough that Capcom eventually stuck her in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Aside from this movie being full of British actors who do REALLY awful American accents, sounding like they all have mouths full of sausages, Paul W.S. Anderson’s first take on Resident Evil is probably the most watchable one he made. 

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - Okay, this one is watchable too, but in more of a popcorn-munching “lol, this shit is dumb” way. It steals the general plot of Resident Evils 2 and 3, with Raccoon City getting infected, but ups the cheese by a hundred. Alice is now a thirteen-year-old boy’s version of a BADAZZ woman, with lots of guns and a bare midriff, and she teams up with Jill Valentine, who resembles her game self in looks but not exactly in personality. Together, they’ve gotta escape Raccoon City along with Carlos Oliveira, who is possibly the only character from the games who is done a great service in these Anderson movies, which make him much more likable even if they couldn’t find an actual Hispanic actor to portray him and had to settle for an Israeli instead. Oh, and Nemesis shows up, because one of the dudes from the first movie who accompanied Alice into the Hive gets experimented on and turned into what honestly looks like someone’s Halloween costume. The writers commit a cardinal sin at the end of the flick by humanizing him, having him suddenly remember his TRUE SELF and help the good guys, but aside from that screw-up I admit that I had a goofy grin on my face throughout several parts of this movie. After Nemesis blows up the Raccoon City station and murmurs his one line of dialogue- “STARRRRRSSSS” - I even kinda felt like clapping. So yeah, Apocalpyse is idiotic fun.

Resident Evil: Extinction - Here’s where the movies stop being mildly entertaining and become varying degrees of either “meh” or just plain bad. Extinction’s biggest problem is that it makes the weird decision of having the entire PLANET be wiped nearly completely clean by Umbrella’s virus, giving the franchise the most generic setting imaginable for a zombie flick - a post-apocalyptic world. And even though this film features Claire Redfield and actually has Alice fight a Tyrant that looks the part, I feel that by turning the environment into Mad Max the filmmakers missed the entire point of the franchise. Resident Evil isn’t really about a “what if” scenario with mankind dying and zombies taking over the world. Instead, it’s about how humanity manages to cope in a time where zombies are used by corporations for terrorism purposes - hence the franchise’s “bio-organic weapon” catch-phrase for its creatures. It’s about how brave people live on in an era that just happens to feature biopunk monsters as a deadly fact of life. It’s about the evil that resides within a world that is pretty shitty, but hasn’t completely gone to shit. By turning the whole planet into the same ol’ zombie playground that we see in most popular fiction starring these workman-like horror tropes, Extinction - which probably thought it was upping the stakes - instead just feels sorta dull, and anyone who views the film today is probably going to see it as a weaker version of The Walking Dead. Oh, and it ends with Alice discovering clones of herself, which will only serve to screw with the loose continuity of these movies as they go on. 

Resident Evil: Afterlife - This one starts with Alice’s clones raiding the Umbrella facility in Tokyo, and the whole sequence - which feels like it should be the finale - is reduced to a few minutes of special effects in the beginning. (This is foreshadowing for the next two films, which both end with hints of giant, climatic battles that mostly happen off-screen, if at all.) The first thing that I noticed when watching this was how slow-mo kicked in every five minutes and how the camera seemed to linger on bullets, and I eventually remembered that this film was released during Hollywood’s obsession with 3D during the early 2010s. This explains Afterlife’s IN-YOUR-FACE-IN-THREE-DIMENSIONS action scenes, which are initially pretty in a music video sort of way but become overdone and tiresome as the movie goes on, kinda like a Zack Snyder film. (I place Paul W.S. Anderson in the same “style over substance” category of director as both Zack Snyder and Michael Bay, by the way.) Anyway, Afterlife deals with Alice teaming up with more survivors to try to find a secret ship haven free of zombies. Along the way she runs into Chris Redfield, who looks more like a janitor than the jacked BSAA agent that he is in the games, and Chris and Claire Redfield have a quick sibling reunion and fight Wesker in a scene with choreography shamelessly stolen from Resident Evil 5. It’s pandering fan service and sort of diverting, but ultimately none of it matters. Chris disappears after this movie and is never seen again, and Afterlife is more interesting as a specimen of 2010 3D excess than it is as an actual narrative.

Resident Evil: Retribution - Retribution amps the pandering fan service that Afterlife dabbled in to new levels. Ada Wong is here, played by Li Bingbing but dubbed by her original voice actress, Sally Cahill, probably because Li’s English isn’t that great. Leon Kennedy and Barry frickin’ Burton show up, both looking pretty much like their in-game counterparts. Even Michelle Rodriguez and a few other faces from Paul W.S. Anderson’s first Resident Evil flick make an appearance, thanks to the fact that this movie has clones up the wazoo and uses them to handwave away any series inconsistencies you could think of. So you’re got fan service for the people who like the games and fan service for the folks who liked the first movie, and on top of it all the film has the extreme 3D that its predecessor possessed and a buttload of battles because it all takes place in a giant Umbrella simulation facility full of stuff that can easily be wrecked. By now the plot to these things has gotten more scrambled than my eggs in the morning, but I will say that thanks to its inclusion of classic characters, Retribution is more or less tolerable. There’s even a bit of characterization this time around, thanks to a little hearing-impaired clone girl who Alice takes under her wing and begins to care for, and the movie ends on an okay cliffhanger in a Washington DC under siege, promising epic things to come in the next movie. Unfortunately... Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - I really did not enjoy The Final Chapter for a myriad of reasons. First of all, the Washington battle promised at the end of Retribution never happens. Instead, we fast forward to several months later, when Alice is (big surprise) the only survivor, and EVERYONE she was with in the last flick - Ada, Leon, the little deaf girl - is gone and never mentioned ever again. Wesker, who Alice was working with in Retribution, is back to being a bad guy for poorly explained reasons. Another bad scientist dude that Alice killed in Extinction also returns for even worse reasons, because supposedly Alice only offed his clone three movies ago. But wait, this “real” bad scientist dude is also revealed to be a clone as the TRUE bad scientist dude shows up in the movie’s last act! AND THE ULTIMATE TWIST (look away now if you actually care about spoilers) is that Alice is HERSELF a clone of the original daughter of the Umbrella corporation’s founder who died of a degenerative disease and served as the basis for the Red Queen AI. The idiotic thing is that this daughter was said to be the progeny of Dr. Charles Ashford in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but this movie retcons her to be the spawn of Dr. James Marcus. The Final Chapter, in fact, screws with continuity to a degree I have rarely seen before in a long-running film franchise. Yeah, the framework tying this series together got weird as soon as clones were introduced, but previously it seemed that Paul W.S. Anderson at least cared about his own messy fan fiction. Here? It’s like he forgot what he’d spent the last 15 years building up to and ended on one sloppy fart. If this weren’t bad enough, The Final Chapter is edited in that god awful “shaky cam, lots of fast cuts” way that I hate. In fact, I counted something like twenty cuts in a scene of a few seconds when Alice is attacked by a creature, which means that this film won’t just baffle you with its disregard for continuity - it’ll give you a headache too. 

Resident Evil: Degeneration - After watching an array of live-action flicks that took random Resident Evil threads and mashed them together with the elegance of a splattered turd, it did feel good to switch things up and move to the CG movies that were actually put out by Capcom. This 2008 offering takes place in between Resident Evils 4 and 5, stars Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy, and deals with a virus breakout in an airport and some of the pharmaceutical company backstabbing that occurred in the aftermath of Umbrella’s destruction. It’s all stuff that feels like it could have come from a lesser gaiden game - perhaps in the same vein as the first Revelations title - and it kinda gives off that “so-so anime movie” vibe, especially because the dubbing always sounds a tad off. Nevertheless, Degeneration’s still a breath of fresh air compared to the Anderson series, and there’s a nice gag where Claire’s searching for a weapon in the airport, someone hands her a physical umbrella, and she looks at it and is like, “Hm, didn’t see this coming.” (Lollerskates.) The main issue I have with Degeneration is how “plasticky” everyone looks - it’s hard to realize how far computer animation has advanced in the last decade until you look at Degeneration’s stiff visuals and compare them to the other CG films. Also, Leon’s characterization is terrible. He’s meant to be a super serious badass, I guess, but he mostly just looks like someone rammed a Samurai Edge up his sphincter. I prefer my Leon Kennedy to be the “Don’t worry Ashley, I’m comin’ for ya!” version from Resident Evil 4, or at least a dude with a little sass to him. The guy in Degeneration is about as interesting as a board.  Resident Evil: Damnation - Damnation is a noticeable step above Degeneration, both in computer animation, which really got better from 2008 to 2012, and in all-around presentation. The dubbing’s still somewhat wonky with that same anime movie vibe, but the characterization is on point, and Leon, who’s taking center stage once more, is just like his RE6 self. Speaking of RE6, this movie channels that game’s themes of international terrorism with a plot that involves rebels in a made-up Eastern European country using Lickers and Las Plagas in an effort to fight for their freedom, only to learn that lo and behold, the nefarious female president who’s seized control of their nation has her own B.O.W.s - in the form of Tyrants - at her disposal. Leon’s caught in the middle of this mess and ends up befriending some of the rebels, and Ada Wong’s also infiltrated the country to manipulate the president. Ada and Leon’s interactions are as insubstantial as they’ve been in pretty much every game that isn’t the recent RE2make, but we do get a cool fight between Ada and the president, who for some reason knows substantial knife fu. There’s an even better battle between Tyrants and Lickers in a city hall square, and Leon gets throw against pillars, regularly takes hits that would kill a normal person and pilots a tank alongside one of the rebels who looks a lot like Chris Redfield but isn’t Chris Redfield. This dude serves as the film’s sympathetic character - a guy torn from his peaceful existence thanks to political wrangling and is tricked into using B.O.W.s to try to achieve a brighter future. It ends with the fella severely injured but learning how to live and move forward in a world infected with nefarious bioweapons, which is the very theme that the Anderson flicks ditched around movie number three. So good work for side-stepping previous failures and recognizing what Resident Evil is all about, Damnation. 

Resident Evil: Vendetta - If Degeneration’s a so-so anime movie, and Damnation a good anime movie, then Vendetta is just a good movie in general, with no “anime” distinction needed. The dubbing’s finally pretty decent, for one, and the story takes place in between RE6 and RE7, teaming Leon and Chris Redfield up with - HOLY CRAP - Rebecca Chambers, who’s been AWOL since Resident Evil Zero. They’ve gotta stop an arms dealer from bio-nuking New York and doing nasty things to Rebecca, who resembles his dead wife, and along the way Leon pilots a motorcycle on the freeway with his feet while shooting at Cerebrus with his hands. Nearly all of the movie’s considerable action segments are punctuated with rapid fire John Wick-style gunplay, and it works. It’s like the folks who made this film realized that the coolest part of Resident Evil 6 was the point where Leon and Chris point their guns at each other for a few seconds before deciding that they need to put their differences aside and cooperate, and even though you could conceivably fault Vendetta for leaning heavily towards the “action” side of Resident Evil rather than the “horror” side, it’s a well-paced film that finally gives us a substantial interaction between two series mainstays beyond the one minute they shared with each other in RE6. Also, people are still posting GIFs from Vendetta’s action sequences all across Tumblr and forums whenever arguments break out over whether Chris or Leon is TEH COoLER Resident Evil protagonist, so Capcom obviously did something right. If we get another computer animated film, I imagine it’ll lean more heavily towards horror since that’s where the series has gone recently...but hopefully the path of improvement that we’ve seen from Degeneration to Damnation to Vendetta won’t be broken. 

And with that, whew, I’m done with RE movies, at least until the rumored Hollywood reboot that’s supposedly drawing inspiration from Resident Evil 7 comes out. (It can’t be worse than The Final Chapter, I suppose.) I can’t say that my friends were wrong when they warned me that half of these would be shite, but I also can’t say that I ended on a bad note, because Vendetta was pretty good.

After all this, my grand playthrough and consumption of all Resident Evil media is about to finish Next post I make will be a last look at the franchise as a whole...and what a year’s worth of zombie headshots taught me.  All screencaps taken by me. 

[theoreticalreanimation]

Resident Evil: Vendetta Reaction Post- Spoilers

One of my first posts under this handle was a moment by moment reaction post of the last Resident Evil CG film, Resident Evil: Damnation. I figure that since I’ve finally found a viable stream of Resident Evil: Vendetta, it would be a good time to reprise that role and continue my live-reaction of a film that I’ve anticipated for a while. 

All I know about this is that Chris, Leon, and Rebecca make an appearance in this film. I’ve been slow on my trailer uptake.

Here we go!

Beginning with a slow-mo walk. Or just someone being super dramatic- OF COURSE IT’S LEON. BECAUSE WHO THE FUCK ELSE WOULD DIVA WALK.

Leon, staring into a body bag is rarely a good idea. Especially in this universe.  “Never thought my life would turn out this way”. Yeah, you’ve come a long way from being the rookie cop who slept in on his first day.

Why does Chris’ introductions always start off with “So you’re Chris Redfield?” WHO THE FUCK ASKS IF YOU’VE KILLED A LOT? Isn’t that like a super taboo question? I wish they’d quit changing the character’s face models and voices. It kinda ruins the aesthetic/immersion for me. Hahaha, Chris has someone apologizing for asking him the stupid question. 

Baddie is “Glenn Arias” and looks like pseudo-Wesker. Thanks for defining BOW for me random Mexican military bro.

It’s a fucking mansion. Of course it’s a fucking mansion. I’m not gonna lie though, I love the mansion thing. OPEN THE DOOR. ARE THERE PUPPIES? Poor Chris just longs for a bungalow or something. This seriously looks like the Arklay mansion. I’m having flashbacks for Chris. True to form, the first explorable room is the dining room. THE CANDLES ARE LIT AND THE FUCKING BUILDING LOOKS CONDEMNABLE. BACK THE FUCK UP.

There was an upside down fireplace zombie. It peeked out like a cheesy peek-a-boo vampire. 

Note for all: All good things happen at 3am. Including zombie mansion raids and sneaking up on a toy truck wrapped up in bed sheets. Continued footage of soldiers shitting themselves when random noises happen. There’s a zombie child playing with an RC truck controller. SLOW APPROACHING GUYS WITH GUNS. AND THEY’RE NOT SHOOTING. THE KID IS COVERED IN BLOOD AND HIS JAW HINGING OPEN. “ARE YOU OKAY” GOOD THING YOU’RE DEAD NOW BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR SHEER STUPIDITY. Chris, no. Please don’t focus on the stupid truck. This is obviously zombie child’s bait. THERE’S LIKE FIVE OF THEM UNDER THE BED. PLUS THE GROUP THEY JUST GOT. Zombie design is cool in this one. It’s a lot more like the classic ones. HAHA POP A GRENADE in the play room. Oh. Mexican bro is bit. Lights out bestie. Chris, how does your whole team always manage to fall victim to this shit?

There’s a half woman/long-haired man whose exposed spine looks like a scorpion tail. And it’s kind of hysterical. 

CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR BEHIND YOU YOU DUMB-oh, the piano wire trick. Well, the last remaining members of Chris’ team are effective mincemeat thanks to pseudo-Wesker’s preplanning.  I’m glad to see the REverse tap in to the scariness of zombie children. 

Chris isn’t immune to slow mo. Leon diva walks in slow mo, Chris slow mo crashes through a window and then proceeds to have a fight with pseudo-Wesker. Growling “Arias” doesn’t have the same effect unfortunately. 

TELL ME THIS GUY AIN’T PSEUDO-WESKER. BITCH SLAP INCLUDED. God I’m only fifteen minutes into this. 

More interesting ideas of zombies who are trained to attack some people over others. Poor Chris has been shot, disarmed and is facing an incoming hoard so... wait for it. And here... we.... *fanfare* the CALVARY ARRIVES. And title screen. Fuck. I’mma have a lot to say. Rebecca isn��t even here yet.

Cut to a wedding. Arias’ wedding. AND A PREDATOR DRONE BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF IT. AMURRCA. He’s still holding his new wife’s severed arm. Dramatic and also a lot repulsive. Appropriate reaction to wife’s death? World domination and black market trading of bioweapons. Good response.

Enter Rebecca. Because no one in the REverse believes in changes of hair style in 25 years. REBECCA IS A BASIC STARBUCKS BITCH. “Caramel Macchiato? Did you remember the chocolate chips?” “And the whipped cream on top.” “Good boy.”

Rebecca, who wears a belt over a sweater vest. Judging you hardcore right about now. She also just pulled seniority to not have to collect samples from infected bodies. I liked her more when she was trudging around with Billy. HER POST DOC DOESN’T EVEN REACT WHEN THERE’S HIGH HEELS CLICKING DOWN THE HALLWAY. YOU’RE GONNA DIE.

That was quick. We’ve already synthesized a vaccine and it’s only twenty-five minutes in. Good thing for when we DISPERSE THE VIRUS THROUGH THE VENTILATION DUCTS. 

Rebecca obviously didn’t read the case notes on RE2′s events to show her why testing her new creation on herself is an AWFUL IDEA. Also, I’m pretty sure virology labs have specialized ducting FOR THIS PURPOSE. I feel like Rebecca’s been out of the game too long. She’s just sitting and staring at her zombified post-doc. HE IS LITERALLY THROWING HIS MOUTH AT YOU AND THE REST OF HIS BODY IS JUST FOLLOWING. I don’t care if he bought you Starbucks, bash that fucker in the head! You just risked being in your safe spot by wanderers for a bottled water. I swear to Christ Rebecca. You keep this up I’m not gonna root for you this whole movie. You’re becoming an escort mission. WHO IS THIS BODY SUIT VIXEN WALKING AROUND BLOWING SHIT UP.  BAHA. Chris is just so done with the shit that goes down in his life. “Rebecca. It’s been a while.” “You should be wearing a clean suit. Or at least a mask.” “Yeah well.” NO FUCKS. Neo-Umbrella was so short lived. There’s no point of mentioning it. Tricell too. Scoot on by.

Rebecca put back in something resembling her old clothes so people recognize her. Also having to re-establish her backstory of child-prodigy STARS medic. Enter “In Raccoon City.” “RACCOON CITY?” Now we’re discussing how much of a “masterpiece” (actual quote) Breaking Bad is. FOR REAL.

Leon is drinking hard “Oh, look who it is. BSAA’s golden boy and Dr. Highhopes! What the Hell do you want?” This is weird, they’ve turned Leon into a drunk cynic which is completely opposite his character. Also apparently we can’t go one story-involved installment since 5 making someone an alcoholic. Leon, who has previously (in all animated installments and games) jumped at the chance to help a person or society in some endeavor. “I’m on vacation”. Burnt out on BOWs. Saying he doesn’t remember Los Illuminados because it was so long ago. Chris is staging a intervention by not letting the bartender bring him another bottle.  Leon is looking old. Not even like a nice old, just haggard. Fighting and then gets tired of it not getting any better and just gives up. Realistic but not quite true to Leon’s character.  “So you’ve got on one hand an arms dealer, and on the other, a government that drops bombs on weddings. Who’s the bad guy here?” I’m not liking this cynic Leon. 

"I know that neither one of you are the type of person who would sit here and argue while the world dies. That’s not who you are.” Thank you Rebecca.

Gathering surviving members of Los Illuminados to launch a large scale bioterror operation. 1) WHAT SURVIVING MEMBERS? 2) Leon doesn’t remember anything about them apparently so the world is S.O.L. Sorry. It was just conveniently established.

Leon trying to trade information for help, and then BANE WITH A GATLING GUN SHOWS UP. 

And body suit vixen has kidnapped Rebecca. Probably because she has short hair like Pseudo-Wesker’s dead wife. Y’know, even real Wesker had that creepy photo in his desk.

“There goes my vacation. Again.” Leon you’re drunk and in no condition to fight. I KNEW IT. I FUCKING KNEW IT. PUT HER IN A FUCKING WEDDING DRESS.

HIS WEDDING GUESTS ARE REANIMATED IN BOXES AROUND TABLES. THIS GUY IS FUCKING INSANE.

“I heard that you found a cure for my merchandise.” “A cure isn’t the only thing I found” HOW ABOUT YOU NOT EXHAUST YOUR USEFULNESS IN THE FIRST TEN SECONDS OF CAPTIVITY. SHE’S IN MONOLOGUE. 

That’s unnecessarily complicated. Three strains of virus, one airborne, one waterborne.

SHE LITERALLY TOLD HIM EVERYTHING SHE KNEW. REBECCA. I AM SO DONE WITH YOU. GO BACK TO THE CONFINES OF OBSCURITY.

“My team has my research and my blood.” STOP SPILLING THE BEANS.

“-photo flashes up on the screen- That’s Sara. My wife. You look just like her. It’s not a coincidence that we met.”  “Wait. Where are you going with this?” YOU’RE ONLY JUST NOW QUESTIONING THIS? YOU’RE IN A WEDDING DRESS. IN A ROOM DRESSED UP LIKE A RECEPTION AREA. WITH WEDDING GUESTS. NEXT TO A GUY IN A WHITE TAILCOAT. YOU. ARE. OBLIVIOUS.

“I’m redoing the wedding with you.” “Rebecca. Meet Sara!”

NOPENOPENOPENOPE

“I’m going to replace your arm with Sara’s.” NO. 

“What’s going on here?” WHAT DOES IT FUCKING LOOK LIKE REBECCA. CONTEXT CLUES.

Bane 2.0 is bodysuit vixen’s dad. Possibly Sara’s dad too. More on this later, probably.

Let’s release the trigger virus on New York! Because that seems like a good idea where baddies couldn’t possibly get caught up in the fallout of that decision. A plus decision making going on in this place.  A funny detail. They’ve named this virus the A-Virus. The truck distributing it is A-Gua industries. Like someone sat in a board room just pitching company fronts and then everyone has a tear-filled belly laugh for about five minutes before going “yeah, let’s go with that.”

BSAA just dropping hummers and motorcycles. Counter-terrorism measures! Yeah!

Let’s just open the van that’s moving like something’s trying to get out. Because there’s three characters on screen and one didn’t exist before an hour ago, so he’s obviously gotta go. AAAAAAAAAND THEY’RE CERBERUSES. OF COURSE. WHO DIED? NEWBIE MCFRESHFACE.

“Any ideas?” Fucking shoot them, Chris.

Leon is speeding down the streets of New York, during morning rush hour, on a motorcycle, with two cerberuses KEEPING UP WITH HIM. I just can’t do the slow-mo in this movie. It’s too dramatic every time. 

He’s gotta be going like 80 miles an hour.

Oh my god. Leon. No. This is too fucking much. You don’t do a “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions” in a five-second pose on a motorcycle while zooming away. 

Glad to know that they took Rebecca’s blood sample and re-engineered a new strain of the virus in LESS THAN TWELVE HOURS. SOME SPEEDY WORK THERE GUYS.

Oh no, Bodysuit Vixen is down! I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS YET. Well that was pointless.

Oh, baddie monologue. LET’S EXPOSE THE WHOLE PLAN. He’s even wearing black leather gloves. I also don’t get the point of infecting Rebecca if he wants to pretend she’s his wifey. But, whoever said that mass murdering bioterrorists had to make logical sense?

Chris is on a zombie slashing spree in the facility and is getting blood all over him. YOU KNOW BETTER. Chris and Leon are always each other’s calvary. They show up whenever the other needs help because it’s convenient. Leon is not counting his bullets.

WHAT KIND OF MOVE WAS THAT CHRIS.

“Rebecca’s running out of time!” “Let’s split up!” Good thing you guys brought a whole armory’s worth of ammo and you CAN do that apparently.

Conveniently placed incindiary grenade takes care of all your big problems. Bane’s down.  CHRIS. DON’T DO THE DUMB. Obviously infected Rebecca, veins are raised and blue. She’s CLAMPED TO A FUCKING TABLE. “You okay?” NO. NO SHE’S NOT OKAY.

Another Chris v Pseudo-Wesker showdown. Everyone has a gun and rolly slidy moves. The whole thing is ridiculous and also hysterical. The choreography just makes me ugly laugh. WHERE IS ALL THIS AMMO COMING FROM BOYS.

Oh ouch. That was definitely a concussion for Chris. That was pain. I’m also kind of over this whole RE villain dying in the same installment that they’re introduced into. It makes it really hard to continue a story line and kind of makes them worthless as a villain. Like this guy just being thrown down an elevator shaft and then being absorbed by Bane-lookalike doesn’t really provide for a satisfying continuing villain. Even if he is pseudo-Wesker.

BOSS FIGHT. 

I don’t know what to call this creation. Pseudo-Banker, I think.  

LEON BROUGHT THE FUCKING MOTORCYCLE ONTO THE ROOF. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? THIS IS BRINGING THE WARTHOG INTO AREAS OF THE HALO MAP IT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO GO IN. HE WENT AND FOUND AN ELEVATOR SO HE COULD SIT THERe> WITH HIS MOTORCYCLE. ELEVATOR MUSIC PLAYING WHILE THE MACHINE SLOWLY STARTS FILLING THE COMPARTMENT WITH CO2. WHY? SO THE MONSTER CAN BE DISTRACTED BY THE BINGBONG AND LEON CAN RUN HIM OVER.

FOR COOL POINTS.

LEON I SWEAR TO GOD.

Meanwhile while you boys are worrying about looking cool, Rebecca is dying. I mean I personally don’t care much but you guys would so I think that maybe this might be something that you should probably speed up and start worrying about.

THE BSAA JUST SHOT A FUCKING ROCKET THROUGH THE BOW. WHICH RIPPED THROUGH HIM AND FOUR OTHER BUILDINGS. MASS CASUALTIES. THE BOW ISN’T EVEN DEAD YET. IT JUST RUSHED THE HELICARRIER. FUCKING COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Now the girl who shot the rocket is dead, and the BOW is giggling. And rightfully so. 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDIN GME LEON PUT THE MOTORCYCLE AWAY

GoDDAmmiT. THE LICENSE PLATE IS BSAA 752. LAUNCHING THE MOTORCYCLE AT A HELICARRIER THAT IS IN THE AIR IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. The fucking wheel hit him in the arm. Leon shot the gas tank. It exploded. THE BOW IS STILL ALIVE BTW.

And then Chris has the idea to hit the big glowing weak point (his heart) with a grenade launcher. Because obviously even though they’ve all been doing this for 25 years, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR. Oh yeah, when the timer goes off Rebecca dies. Good thing Chris found the gas tank with the antidote in it. Thankfully they manufactured an antidote. The convenience of forethought.  ROCKET LAUNCHER GIRL IS STILL ALIVE. I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S A CONTINUITY ERROR.  Meanwhile, we remembered that all of New York is currently munching on each other and we should probably maybe cure them too and not just Rebecca. So they’re all back to normal but their stomachs are full of blood and flesh so... Maybe you won’t eat for a couple days. Leon and Chris are having their flying off into the sunrise moment where they reflect on the events and decide that it’s all worth it, Leon’s probably no longer a drunk, which by the process of elimination means that Rebecca’s going to start adding shots of Bailey’s in her Starbucks every morning. 

BODYSUIT VIXEN! Red-eyed Bodysuit Vixen. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU.

I literally don’t understand what this has to do with Los Illuminados except that Bodysuit Vixen and Bane 2.0 were probably maybe from Spain.

[cinedave]

REVIEW: Resident Evil The Final Chapter - A passable game over

“The Final Chapter”..... the “alternative facts” of film titles when a big promised ending turns out to be anything but. Friday the 13th; The Final Chapter was merely film 4 of 12 (including crossovers and reboots). Saw 3D being dubbed “The Final Chapter” held true for nearly 6 years until a new film was commissioned last year. Final Destination 4 was “The Final Destination” or rather it wasn’t when number 5 showed up. You’re right, there is a recurring horror franchise theme here which kind of makes sense.... the killer always comes back. Now the Resident Evil video game film franchise becomes the latest to pledge us, “The Final Chapter”. The thing is, it would be really really great if this one turned out be actual facts. While they’ve had some merit in their action and game character recreation the last two films have been of a poor quality with 2007s Afterlife being the last passable effort (it at least tried to have a story rather than being a shambles of dumped in components). It’s time to call time on Umbrella, tentacle sprouting zombies and Milla Jovovich in skin tight PVC (ok, I’m flexible on that last one) so if Final Chapter could muster a respectable send off that would be best for all involved. In the end it more or less does.

Ten years after the T-Virus destroyed human civilization, the former Umbrella security officer and survivor Alice (Milla Jovovich – The Fifth Element, The Three Musketeers) will return to its origin of Racoon City to stop the company’s endgame and finally learn her true identity.

So in true film series franchise the early scenes quickly skirt away from the prior film’s big ending tease (a last stand for humanity at the White House) into a completely different story that to explain why many characters haven’t returned. It’s still a disappointment. but less for seeing it coming. In this case that was actually a big old trap by Albert Wesker to have everyone taken out (#dickmove) with that Washington location now baring resemblances Trump’s inauguration day. Now the story we do get actually isn’t that bad and in many ways it showcases the best features of the film series and even some game style tense survivor horror scenes too, punctuated by jump scares. It incorporates everything long term fans have long to expect from big location and biohazard battling set pieces, post apocalyptic settings, hard hitting fights and zombie hordes. In particular the second half makes a back U-turn back towards the first (and best) film both thematically and in setting as the team infiltrate the Racoon City Hive with security measures and T-virus creations being used against them. At times this even has shades of a slightly less sadistic Saw film but most enjoyably of all we get an encore to first film’s most memorable sequence….. yep, the one that gave us diced Colin Salmon. However, the story does come with a humongous special combo kick to the teeth though and it’s one you’re absolutely better off knowing going in. Much of the story is based on Umbrella secretly having a big T-Virus cure all along (I know, it’s MGS torture level frustrating) and that the whole outbreak was the company pulling a Noah’s Ark routine. While that does tie some things up well as an idea, to have it just thrown in this late can’t help but feel like a disappointing cop out that makes a number of past events now seen rather dumb.

The single biggest problem here is the cast… or the lack of. This does not feel like a big climatic ending for the franchise because so much of it is populate red shirt newbies. The biggest selling point of any final chapter is the vulnerability of all main characters; instead of miraculous sequel setting up character escapes suddenly anyone can (and often does) die, especially in a horror franchise. Yet this film has minimal long standing film or game characters available to utilize that. Aside from Alice, Ali Larter’s (Heroes) Claire Redfield returning from 2010s Afterlife is the only returning protagonist (so no Jill, Leon, Chris or Ada). On the villain side thankfully Iain Glen (Game of Thrones) makes a good old, “but you’re dead?” comeback as Dr. Issacs to bolster Shawn Roberts blander than a green herb Albert Wesker. In fact without Iain Glen this film would have been a complete mission failure and his character fate is the only that carries any meaning and he brings good menace to Umbrella’s scheming. Around them are nothing but bland and occasionally nameless archetypes like, ”Moody guy with a sword”, “Cool Ozzy chick” and “Asian martial arts guy”. It all combines to make it feel more like just another film rather than a climax. However, one character point they do get right is the big reveal of Alice’s identity. I’d laugh for a full minute if they claimed it was their plan all along but it’s a respectable effort than manages to be surprising and unorthodox without being too ridiculous.

The action elements of the film are mostly strong but with one unexpected head shot. There’s a lot of good variety from fighting on moving tanks (Indiana Jones approves), to post apocalyptic siege warfare, monster fights and big character showdowns. Most of it is a good enjoyable and often quite fast paced spectacle. Yet in some sequences, for reasons not even online support can explain, the camera work is utterly terrible. Director of Photography Glen MacPherson.... did you get infected midway through production? It’s like they filmed some parts hand held with a pair of rampant ferrets down the cameraman’s pants turning everything into an almost unrecognizable blur of flailing limbs that may or may not be hitting something. It kills any enjoyment and instead becomes overwhelmingly frustrating. In fairness the intent is clear; to make it more edgy and surreal but it gets an E-grade for accuracy. Thankfully it’s not every sequence but when it happens don’t waste your time trying to follow too closely.

Although Jovovich has claimed this will be her last Alice suit up her final words includes, “my work is not yet done”….. so we’re either being teased or trolled over the idea of more. Yet if this is to be end it’s one we’ll take. The Final Chapter is not the best film of the series but it’s certainly better than the last two. “We’ve played a long game, you and I” says villain to hero just like franchise writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson to the fans who’ve stuck it out. Indeed we have…. but now is the right time for a game over.

[pixelgrotto]

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part nine

If there’s one word that can be used to describe Resident Evil: Revelations, it’s “solid.” This is kinda funny, since most of the game takes place on a body of water - or more specifically, a ship floating in the middle of the ocean. This is a good setting for a horror game that, interestingly enough, was used in Ubisoft’s Resident Evil 4 clone Cold Fear and the negatively reviewed Game Boy Color spin-off Resident Evil Gaiden, which I’ll get to eventually.

But going back to my main point, RE: Revelations is a very fine playable experience. It features the over-the-shoulder viewpoint and gunplay that’s been the series norm since RE4, but has a confined, ominous setting more reminiscent of the earlier Resident Evils. Just like the Lost in Nightmares DLC of Resident Evil 5, which saw Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield infiltrating a spooky European manor that bore more than a passing resemblance to the original Spencer Mansion, it seems that Revelations was engineered to combine new school Resident Evil with old school Resident Evil, creating a combo to please all the series veterans who complained that the sunshine of RE5 had made things decidedly un-scary, while still not alienating newer fans. 

There’s a lot of decent stuff in this combo, starting with the front and center return of Jill Valentine. While Resident Evil was a franchise that always did a great job of female representation in its earlier entries, as the games have gotten more bang shoot ‘em up, the main protagonists have increasingly become dudes while the ladies have been delegated to support roles. This falls into the trope of “action games star guys to empower male players while survival horror games star women to make male players want to protect the protagonist,” so it’s nice to see Revelations buck this trend. Jill does spend the entirety of the game in a skintight wetsuit that’s contributed to a lot of cringy fanart, but to Revelations’ credit, she is never sexualized throughout the entire campaign. The two other main females in the cast - Jessica Sherawat, a BSAA member who’s kind of a skank and rocks a ridiculous costume that’s missing an entire leg, and Rachel Foley, a "secret agent” who looks like a Twitch titty streamer - don’t fare nearly so well, but at least Jill is done right. 

Jessica and Rachel aren’t the only new characters introduced into series lore - Revelations has a whole ton of fresh faces, and since the game is divided up into 12 hour-long chapters, it seems like the devs were also inspired to make everyone seem reminiscent of someone in a television show. You’ve got the BSAA boss who seems based on every CSI boss ever, two funky dudes named Keith (finally, a playable black guy) and Quint who buck the trend of these games only starring highly attractive models, a whole bunch of bioweapon-stealing terrorists, a bad guy with a goatee who looks like he wandered in from the Metal Gear Solid party down the hall, and the best newbie of all - Parker Luciani, an Italian BSAA member who looks like Russell Crowe and fills in the same kind of “dad” role that Barry Burton occupied in Resident Evil 1.

Weaving these TV drama-esque characters together is a plot that trades zombies for mutated human/sea creature hybrids, which is an excellent combination since the sea is home to pure terror. The story twists and turns in a mostly understandable way until chapter 11 or so, when it suddenly devolves into deus ex machina cliches and faces the same problems as a lot of Japanese games that are trying to be too witty for their own good. (See: the vast majority of Final Fantasy titles.) It’s not a bad tale, and it plays things straight in the same way that Resident Evil 5 did, but is somewhat less memorable in the long run since it lacks a proper baddie like Wesker to really stick out in your mind.

And that’s probably the only issue I have with Revelations. There’s nothing really wrong with the game, but that means that it’s also oddly forgettable in some ways, and definitely feels like the side story Nintendo 3DS gaiden that it was originally developed as when compared with its recent predecessors. It lacks the super engaging pacing that Resident Evil 4 had, for instance - while RE4 was the sort of game that made me want to stay up late playing just one more hour, I was okay to take a break and go to bed after each bite-sized bit of Revelations. And while Revelations provides a decidedly more focused single-player experience than Resident Evil 5, the strange racial miscalculations of that title and the Hollywood-influenced (but genuine, I believe) portrayal of Africa just make RE5 more interesting, in my opinion. This isn’t to say that Revelations is dull - it’s just that it’s sandwiched in between other series entries that I simply find myself having more to say about. Sometimes when you’re the third child who does his thing well enough, yet is overshadowed by the perfect big brother (RE4) and an annoying at times, compelling at others second sibling (RE5), this sort of phenomenon can happen.

But lest we end on a meh note, I will give credit where credit is due - the many new faces that Revelations brings to the increasingly complex world of Resident Evil are mostly welcome ones, and the game does a solid (there’s that word again) job of bringing back the terror that used to infuse the series in an era when the scares were slowly being forgotten. Though, part of me wonders if I would have enjoyed Revelations even more if it had brought back fixed camera angles, too... Hmm, nine games deep into this series playthrough and it appears that I can finally choose a side in the great debate over which style of Resident Evil I kind of prefer. Make mine fixed camera angles! All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.