REVIEW : RESIDENT EVIL : AFTERLIFE

RESIDENT EVIL : AFTERLIFE

Resident Evil was, and still is, one of the most remembered and respected games in the entire history of gaming. It brought horror to an audience that until that point had almost no choice when it came to horror video game entertainment. So it would seem that making a movie of such a franchise would make sense, keeping the dark, suspenseful thrills and creepy set pieces that have become such a part of groundbreaking games.. or you could just turn into an action movie that just happens to have zombies in it. Lets go for the second one shall we? And here comes the review of Resident Evil Afterlife 3D.

Alice is on the hunt for Wesker, the head (I think), of Umbrella corporation. After something to do with clones Alice loses her powers and ends up flying a plane to a place where she, for some reason, finds a feral Claire Redfield with no memory and they head off as enemies to an abandoned prison where a few survivors are holding up. All this is strung together with bad story telling and of course the magic of 3D.

Now first up as you can tell from the synopsis above, the plot of Afterlife is almost non-existent, as with the previous Resident Evil movies.  But lets be honest now, if you went into this movie expecting anything with substance then you are probably one of the unrealistic characters that inhabits these movies in the first place. So with that said lets actually look at it for what it is.

The 3D is not post conversation for a start, which means that the film was shot in 3D, not converted afterwards, (Unlike Piranha and Wes Craven’s My Soul To take), so Afterlife gets points for that. As usual it also tries to jam in some cool things from the games, of course often at the expense of story telling. So the appearance of the huge axe wielding brute from Resident Evil 5 was a nice touch and Chris Redfield finally appears for no real reason, but its familiar and should have fans of the series happy.

The film is stylish, looks great and most of the action flows very nicely, the main issue I had with the film was that there was no real spectacle made from the 3D. Therefore almost making it pointless to have shot in 3D in the first place. Most of the 3D moments felt half-cocked, with no dynamic to them and that brings the film down to below average.

OVERALL

The film is actually watchable if you turn your brain off, so if you’re one of the zombies waiting to eat Alice’s brains, then you should be fine. Don’t expect much and you’ll be all right. Unfortunately the lack of any kind of plot when releasing a film that costs this much and is shot in brand spanking new 3D tech leaves me no choice but to bring it down in marks. I have no doubt that Resident Evil 5 is on the way as the film hit big at the box office, but as usual I wouldn’t expect much, apart from naked Alice of Course.

REVIEW : BURIED

BURIED

Boxes are some scary shit aren’t they? If you’re in a horror movie, you definitely don’t want to find a mysterious one. Just ask Cameron Diaz, or the cast of any of the Hellraiser movies, they’ll tell you. But what you don’t want even more than that is to wake up inside one with no idea where you are or how you got there. Unless you’re into that kind of thing, No? Then lets move on.

Buried is a simple premise, Ryan Reynolds wakes up 6 feet under with no idea how he got there or why someone would do this to him. Slowly but surely we find out the whys, the what’s and the how’s.

Buried was a concept so simple that it almost seemed doomed to failure, especially after such films as the mediocre Phone Booth, I figured that if a film with a guy trapped in a phone box was hard to pull off, then guy in a box would be close to impossible. But here we are and guess what? It works.

Buried works for two reasons and of course they are the most important two things in any film. Script and casting. The film is phenomenally well written, and never leaves the box in question. But it never needs to, the film never feels like it slows down and believe me it should, but it never suffers from any kind of drag, we feel the tension all the way. Which brings me to my second point.

Casting Ryan Reynolds is a stroke of genius, ok he’s an obvious Hollywood choice. But one thing we forget about Van Wilder, is that he actually has the chops for it and he carries the tension from frantic beginning to nail biting end and in my eyes never makes any unrealistic decisions for the sake of driving the film home.

Buried is a well but together film and is also well shot as an added bonus. The only qualm I have here is that the whole film takes a very different direction of the why our hero finds himself in the box to what I would have imagined or preferred. Some will like it, for me it was the easy way out, but I’ll leave that down to preference and of course will not spoil the film for you.

OVERALL

Buried shouldn’t work, but it does. The film is so tight that its actually hard to give you any kind of description about it without ruining it for you. But I will say, watch out for a snake moment that puts Indiana Jones to shame, and Indy had the whole world to hide, Reynolds only has a box. Just watch it.

REVIEW : BLACK SWAN

BLACK SWAN

Ah ballet school. How I miss thee. Ok not really, but it is a manly thing… honest. Van Damme did ballet. Ok I realise I’m not doing myself any favours here bringing JC into it, but ballet does make for a totally awesome backdrop to a horror movie. Just ask Suspiria.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is your usual quiet, shy dancer who, through a turn of events and a load of hard work, ends up with the sought after role of the lead in Swan Lake. Her sleazy teacher (Vincent Cassel) realises that, although she is the embodiment of the white swan, It may take a descent into madness for her to find the Black Swan within. Cue descent.

Darren Aronofsky is a director that has always sat in a strange place with me, although I dig his films, I never quiet feel the need to revisit them. I probably should. Films like the Fountain and Requiem For A Dream, almost NEED a re-watch to get a new perspective on the film itself. Black Swan is no different.

The relationship between Nina and here mother does cry out Carrie, but without ever being brave enough to go all the way. Speaking of going all the way, when Nina and fellow student Lily (Mila ‘Shud Up Meg’ Kunis) start getting it on the film takes a twist for the worse as we start to realise that all the strangeness happening around Nina may be in her head. Or is it?

Yes. Then no. Then yes. The film jumps along in this fashion until by the end we are amazed at the visual feast put before us, but understanding it? Not so much.

I have to draw comparisons to Argento’s Suspira at least for setting and feel and for a long time during the movie I wished that this had been a Suspiria remake rather than a film that had no clear antagonist. That being said the build up to the transformation sequence at the end of the films 2^nd act and the transformation itself are strange, but stunning, combined with the beautifully shot dance sequences that push the tale forward make this film worth a watch or two.

OVERALL

Black Swan is being marketed at the mainstream, but its art, true and simple and many casual cinemagoers won’t get it. Many hardcore cinemagoers won’t get it. Maybe we’re not suppose to get it. But film is entertainment at the end of the day and as entertained as I was, I also found myself lost at times. Aronofsky will be taking on Marvel Comics Wolverine next, with the working title being THE WOLVERINE. How about we go all the way (lol) and call it REQUIEM FOR A WOLVERINE?

REVIEW : STAG NIGHT

STAG NIGHT

The mention of Stag Night’s usually brings memories of loud, obnoxious lads, boozing, strippers and rob zombie. Actually, very true, worryingly enough for myself. But this film brings all those things to the table with a twist of horror, of course the horror, this time at least, not coming from the strippers in the City Of Newcastle…Urg. (Although see Zombie Women Of Satan for Geordie Strippers)

Mike is about to get married to the lovely, but somewhat boring, Clare. But there is the obvious underlying tone that she is a bit of a bitch. Hmm. Anyways this results in the obvious Stag Night festivities in which the group of cliché’s finish off at a strip Club. We have the loud, take no shit from nobody, Tony, also brother to our hero, and the others, who are Best Friend Carl and bland boring Joe.

They are being ejected for hitting on some strippers and soon end up on the train home. But Tony, being as obnoxious as the cliché will allow him, sees the strippers they met at the bar and decides the night is not over. After a bit of banter and some misunderstandings involving the girls, Tony, an oncoming train and pepper spray in an enclosed space, the boys and the two strippers end up on an abandoned platform with their train leaving them behind. Carl being a bit of a ladies man decides that romancing the stripper is more important than any kind of escape and so the others head off down the tunnels to find a way out and get thier friends out.

Someway down the tunnel they come across a night security guard, only to see him brutally murdered by a gang of homeless people who I can only say look like Rob Zombie. Thus begins the nightmare as they are picked off one by one by the homeless that live in the tunnels beneath New York City.

I know, I moan, but the simple fact is that even with all its clichés and bad dialogue and forceful story pushing, Stag Night is actually a very watchable film, although with a terrible title font. Tony is played by Breckin Meyer, who some people will remember from teen comedy Road Trip and for the most part Meyer handles his performance with everything we need, even his change in character toward the end of the film isn’t too jarring.

Its well shot, but the pacing was not so much. I found myself at the end of the film feeling like I’d been there for a couple of hours when it was little over 1. There is also some bad dialogue and some very bad and unrealistic character decisions that just don’t sit right for me. Obviously they were placed to push the story forward, but I wasn’t buying it that a girl who had just attacked a bunch of guys with pepper spray would then leave with them into a dark tunnel without her only friend. Then again she was your usual ballsy, ain’t scared of no one, dark haired chick, so maybe I can excuse it. Or not.

The main problem with Stag Night is that it’s a great Idea that never reaches its full potential and hits us with such a tacked on ending that pulls the small amount of emotion from the films climax right out of you, leaving you like a bland guy on a stag night. Bored and frustrated.

OVERALL

Give Stag Night a watch, its worth a one time viewing and its got good production values, but then it did cost £4 Million to make so overall its not that impressive. Where did the money go we wonder and then we stop wondering as we realised it was used to develop technology to clone Rob Zombie.

REVIEW : MACHETE

MACHETE

You knew it was only a matter of time. After the epic trailer for Machete appeared tagged to the front of Robert Rodriguez’ Grindhouse entry Planet Terror, we all knew that Hollywood would try and suck the life out of the trailer that made you put on your deepest trailer voice and spout the name ‘Machete’ to any slightly relevant situation. But could Machete ever work as more than just a trailer? And as the uncle in Spy Kids... Obviously.

When immigrant Machete (Danny Trejo) is hired to assassinate a corrupt politician, he soon finds himself being double-crossed and in the line of fire himself. But as the trailer famously states “If you hire Machete to kill the bad guy, you better make damn sure the bad guy isn’t you”. We now follow Machete as he attempts to get his revenge on the men who betrayed him.

Its all very familiar stuff, we’ve seen it hundreds of times before and not just recently, every action film in 70’s had vaguely the same plot. But where Machete shines through, is that it knows this and is winking at you almost every step of the way. The look and feel of the film have you convinced at times that this film could have been made some 40 years ago.

There are some great appearances from Rodriguez favourites like Trejo, and Cheech Marin as well as some great performances by A-Lister’s like Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba and amazingly Lyndsay Lohan who, along with her mother, gets tapped by Machete himself. Drop in Seagal and De Niro and you have a roster to cream your jeans over.

Its all insane and for some reason the only way I think that most of us will accept someone as ‘Interesting’ looking as Trejo getting it on with some the most beautiful women in the Hollywood. But insane as it is, its all just good fun and takes you on a ride that you won’t soon forget.

 OVERALL

Machete is a thrill ride from bloody beginning, including a pistol being hidden in the least obvious of places, to the crazy Immigrant Lord Of The Rings Battle that sees us out. With plenty of sex, violence and bad language sprinkled along the way Rodriguez has done it again.