Resident Evil

And that quote over there’s about as deep as it gets, folks. But first, let’s shoot some previews in the head.

FRAILTY–So Bill Paxton thinks he can direct now, huh? Well, we’ll see about that.

Actually, this looks really cool. Matthew McConaughey plays Bill’s son who is finally going to the police many years after his father started killing people who he thought were demons. Well, that’s what the voices told him, anyway. And why would the voices lie? Of course no one believes him. (Would you believe that he’s Bill’s son? There you go.)

And 37 days later we get the movie. (According to the IMDb, this was shot in 37 days. Anybody corroborate?)

The preview makes it look suspenseful and actually a little bit scary. I hope it’s good, ’cause I like Bill. He’s a pretty cool guy. And Matthew’s not too uncool, either. But I’m always a little wary of stars directing their first features. But, since Bill’s not a huge star and apparently pretty down to earth, this could be pretty good.

THE SCORPION KING–The kingdom……..that created a warrior. The warrior……….that became a king. The movie……..that became a joke.

More of the same, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Does anyone actually have any interest in seeing if The Rock can actually act? Yeah, he did his own stunts, but who cares? He’s a fucking wrestler! Of course he does his own stunts! He does his own stunts in the ring.

The best thing about this movie is this synopsis from the IMDb:

“This movie is a prequel of a sequel of a movie that was a re-make of another movie that was made 70 years ago.”

Sums it up pretty well. And the movie’s just as convoluted, I’m sure.

THE NEW GUY–Ok, DJ Qualls was pretty funny as the grossly nerdy guy in Road Trip, but can he carry a movie by himself? Well, we’re about to find out. This one has him as (guess what?) the nerdy guy who does something awful to get expelled from school. He goes to prison (!) where he learns how to “be cool.” Then he goes to the high school across town where everyone sees him as a bad-ass.

The best part of the preview (besides the hot chicks, including Eliza Dushku) is when fellow inmate Eddie Griffin tells DJ that “prison is a lot like high school. The sex you want, you don’t get and the sex you get, you don’t want.”

Yep. Pretty sad.

Let’s move on, shall we? I think it’s time to use these big guns on some fuckin’ zombies!

First of all, let me just say that this is a zombie movie. Let me also say that it’s a movie based on a video game. Both of those mean that you have to lower your standards a bit. Ok, a lot. A whole fucking lot.

The next thing is, is there really much of a built in audience for this movie? Well, not really. The games were really popular for a period of about one year. I don’t really hear much about the games anymore, but, then again, I don’t hang out in video game circles too often. In fact, although I own at least one of the Resident Evil games, I’ve only played them probably a total of about 15 minutes. Then I put my Playstation up never to break it out again. Not that the game wasn’t cool, but I kinda grew out of the whole thing.

Which doesn’t stop me from spending a lot of money at Dave & Busters. Dammit.

Anyway, enough about me and my gaming habits.

Resident Evil the movie is about Alice (Milla Jovovich), a young woman who has woken up in the shower (natch) of a huge mansion, but she doesn’t know how she got there, what she’s doing or even who she is. So, of course, she dresses in a slinky red dress and starts looking for people. She meets up with Matt (Eric Mabius from Welcome To The Dollhouse and Splendor), a cop from nearby Raccoon City, and they both soon meet up with a crew of people with masks and very big guns led by the guy from Fine Young Cannibals. (Actually, I have no clue who the hell he is. I actually thought he was Tony Todd, but his name is nowhere to be seen in the credits.)

The crew is also made up of Rain (Michelle Rodriguez from Girlfight and The Fast And The Furious), JD (Pasquale Aleardi from a bunch of Swiss films), Kap (Martin Crewes) and a bunch of other folks who really don’t matter too much as they die pretty early on.

As the crew gets picked off, Alice and someone who appears to be her husband, Spence (James Purefoy from A Knight’s Tale), start to piece together their memories. But are they telling each other the whole truth? And do they really know the whole truth?

The truth is that a big corporation called The Umbrella Corporation (isn’t that used somewhere else? I can’t think of it, but I know I’ve heard it before) has developed a virus that turns people into zombies. Now Alice and her friends, who get trapped far below ground in what is called The Hive, have to fight off the scientists and office workers who are now infected with this virus. On bite or scratch and they become a member of the walking dead. The only way to kill them is, well, you know. It’s all the same.

But they also have to fight with The Red Queen, the “brain” of The Hive. She is a central computer who seems to have gone mad and killed everyone in The Hive. Did she have a reason?

Well, I think I gave that away, but does it really matter? This is a zombie movie. All we need to know is that lots of dead folks are running around fucking with the living folks. And they, in turn, have to fuck up the zombies.

Is the movie good? Well, not really. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s not going to win any new converts to the video game to movie genre. BUT the real question is, is it a good zombie movie. And that answer is Yes. It’s no Night Of The Living Dead (although George Romero was supposed to direct this one…too bad he didn’t. And watch for a reference to Day Of The Dead), but what is? It’s a lot of fun and people get killed in new and creative ways. (I especially liked the dicing scene.)

And it manages to scare up a few scares. A lot of them are of the “complete silence broken by a unrealistically noisy entrance,” but they worked. One thing that kept if from being totally stupid is the fact that they didn’t feel the need to show everything. A lot of times they only suggest that something happens. When someone’s head gets smashed into a ceiling by an elevator, we hear a sound effect, but we don’t see the face get smashed and the neck get ripped. That’s a good thing in this case. It was much more suspenseful and scary that way. But I have heard that a lot of gore was cut out for the MPAA (of course) and that the DVD will have a special unrated version with a lot of gore added back in. Hopefully they put both versions on one disc, because, while I want to see the other version (because I’m a sicko), I kind of like this one.

Paul Anderson (not Paul THOMAS Anderson) is no stranger to the video game genre. He directed the last successful movie like this, Mortal Kombat. I didn’t see that one, but I did see its sequel (not directed by Paul), and that sucked ass. So did Soldier. I heard that Event Horizon wasn’t too bad depending on who I’m talking to. So he knows his way around action and suspense. Sometimes.

Luckily this time he did.

Milla is as good as always, if not better than usual. But that’s not saying a whole lot. She’s pretty bad normally. But she was kinda cool as a bad-ass here. I almost believed it when she broke the dog’s neck with her foot. (And there was a lot of neck breaking going on in this movie. I don’t think I’ve heard that sound effect this often since the last Crosby family picnic I was invited to.)

Michelle doesn’t get too much to do here. Actually, she hasn’t had too much to do since Girlfight except brood and be in love with someone who is either doomed or bad for her or both. I guess we’ll never know if Girlfight was a fluke or if she does indeed have some talent.

Everyone else is at least passable, but since they’re virtual unknowns I won’t bother with them. (But doesn’t the girl in the beginning look a lot like either Milla or Jeri Ryan? Maybe a cross?)

So, if you like zombie movies or like the games (and those are NOT mutually exclusive) check it out. If not, avoid it at all costs.

And just to let you guys know, they leave it open for a sequel. Did you really believe any differently?