Chris 2010 Viewings #43: Resident Evil 2 - Torontocalypse!

You will believe Milla Jovovich can run down the face of Toronto City Hall in Resident Evil: Apocalypse! This is the second movie in the series of motion pictures based on the video games of the same name. I am not a gamer, but my understanding of their attitude towards this series is that it sucks because they did not call it Biohazard like the original Japanese versions, and that the games have no Milla Jovovich character in them and that will not stand.

The sad thing about this is that you can't take Milla Jovovich out of the Resident Evil movies because, while these movies have many pleasures, not many of these pleasures actually have anything to do with being quality movies. The primary pleasure is always Milla Jovovich and whatever supporting female character the films give her kicking zombie dogs in the face and shooting many many many but never enough bullets. I don't have a lot of time for male action stars, but Uma in Kill Bill and Milla Jovovich in these movies make me understand why other people might.

Resident Evil is not the kind of movie I would ever have seen but for a recommendation. An acquaintance who is now a highly paid movie critic at a notable publication told me it was like a Dario Argento movie. I still think he is insane for saying that, but I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it for creative moments like people being sliced into cubes by lasers and then sliding apart, but mostly for Milla Jovovich kicking zombie dogs in the face.

These visceral thrills can get you all excited while you watch them, but they do tend to fade as the distance from your last viewing grows. So I didn't see any of the other Resident Evil pictures until I had a marathon this last weekend so that I could go see the new one at the drive-in. A visit to the Mustang Drive In in Guelph is an annual ritual for me and not much they showed this year had turned my crank so to speak. So a double bill of Resident Evil 4 and Piranha 3D not in 3D? That is the kind of thing drive-ins were made for.

Anyway this second installment begins where the first one ends, with Milla emerging from the death trap of the first movie to find the entire city around her descending into zombie madness. The city is called Raccoon City, a hangover from the game, and one which never fails to shake me out of the movies and say "oh right, this is based on a video game". In reality it is Toronto, and I will say this: if the mere sight of a Pizza Pizza sign gives you cravings, do not watch this movie unless you have cash on hand to pay the delivery guy.

The city has been quarantined by the evil Umbrella Corporation, to prevent the zombie plague from spreading. Milla meets up with a ragtag group of uninfected comrades including a woman in a Lara Croft costume who is almost as enjoyable to watch as Milla. Richard Harris' son, an evacuated scientist, gets in touch with them and tells them that if they rescue his left-behind daughter, he will get them out of town. It all ends with a rootin' tootin' showdown at Nathan Phillips Square, with Milla taking on snipers and a genetically mutated killing machine who was formerly a guy she knew.

I was not bored watching this movie, but I will not pretend it is any good, not even on the non-Milla levels the first one succeeded on. If it had not been shot in Toronto, I may not have enjoyed it as much, but it also probably wouldn't have looked so cheap and loaded with actors you see in Canadian Tire commercials and the like. So, a win-lose situation there.

I hope it will not spoil things too much to reveal that Milla survives and shows up in Resident Evil 3 as well.

Creepy Pedro Reviews "Infest Wisely"

The best science fiction films show us the world as it may someday be: the boinking of "A Clockwork Orange," the tasty vittles of the "Soylent Green," the drab and dusty coattails and derbies of "Michael Palin's Brazil."

This new film, "Infest Wisely," presents the most frightening future of all, where an influence has caused appalling actors mumble improvised lines in a world that not even the writer has explored. This future will be captured on film by a cameraperson who does not understand the verb "to film" and it will be edited with the only tool available in the future: The Lazybones Splicer with Snooze Attachment, 2050.

In the future, I imagine, this film will be shown to colonists on Jupiter when all the other films have been stolen by displaced Jovian natives, and the colonists will admit that even considering their immense hardships living inside titanium exoskeletons on a deadly gas planet they have yet to see something so awful as that. Perhaps, they hope, the next movie from Earth will star Terri Garr, and to forget their troubles they will write letters to their girlfriends in their outerspace journals.

Pose Reviews A Movie. #32: Nothing (2003)

Well...it was a good try.

I rented Vincenzo Natali's Nothing for three reasons:

1. I liked the concept of the film.

2. I like to support Canadian film whenever I can.

and

3. Nothing's director, Vincenzo Natali is also responsible for Cube, which I liked a lot, and Splice, which I haven't seen, but am pretty curious about.

However, I'm going to have to say that Nothing didn't do it for me.

Overall, I think Nothing is a cool idea. When the film begins, our protagonists--roommates Andrew and Dave--are each having the worst day of all time. Dave loses his job and his girlfriend, practically before noon, and Andrew, a total recluse, accidentally locks himself out of the house.

Once the two regroup and get themselves inside, they barely have time for a collective sigh of relief before finding that their house is scheduled for demolition, and that they are both being sought after by police for crimes that are neither related to one another, nor in any way their fault.

It is at this point that, quite inexplicably, everything outside the walls of their house disappears.

Quite literally. What used to be the City of Toronto surrounding their home on all sides becomes empty white space, reminiscent of The Construct from The Matrix. (Or for those who haven't seen The Matrix enough times to get that reference, it's the empty white space where they get all their guns.)

Andrew and Dave are able to venture out into this great abyss, since the surface of the void is a bouncy, albeit invisible terrain, and after a while it becomes evident to both the characters and the audience that everything, everywhere, ever...is gone.

As I said before, it's a neat premise.

However, it may have been better suited to a short-film than a 90-minute feature.

As you can imagine, there's not a lot of places you can go when this is the concept of your movie. Nothing manages to survive on a gradually increasing conflict that occurs between the two main characters, but that survival doesn't make it good--it just makes ensures that the film can last the full hour and a half.

But even that's a bit long. The film gets tedious at times, and for a comedy, there's very little to laugh at--the characters are kooky, but they aren't particularly funny. Mostly, they're just odd.

Usually, you have one weirdo and one straight-man to make a comedic partnership like this work. However, with oddballs like Andrew and Dave, it's like watching a Costello and Costello routine...about nothing.

Overall, I'm glad I watched Nothing to satisfy my curiosity about where a filmmaker could take a concept like this.

Unfortunately, the answer is: "not far."

However, from a technical point of view, Nothing is really pretty cool. The effects used to portray the disappearance of things are pretty impressive, and the sound effects and many of the camera shots are exceptional.

But then again, Hollow Man and Titanic had cool effects too. 'Nuff said.

All in all, I wouldn't discourage anyone from renting Nothing--it isn't terrible, it just isn't great.

But if you're interested in it because it's a cool premise, a frank warning: that's essentially all it is.

Maggie 2010: Fantasy, Meet Action; Action, Meet SciFi

#81. Daybreakers



My expectations for this film were low. Perhaps too low, because Daybreakers did something I have not seen for quite some time in the vampire film continuum: While adhering to formal rules for the vampire archetype (i.e. no sparkles, no magic rings to walk in the daylight), the storyline actually adds something new to vampire mythology as a whole.

The gist of the adventure is as follows: In a post-outbreak world, the vampire plague has transformed too many humans, leaving sustenance in disturbingly short supply. While a rigid corporate structure is governing the capture and imprisonment of remaining humans for exhaustive use in blood farms, scientists like Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) are struggling to find a blood substitute that doesn't turn vampires into goo. This is imperative because, unlike the irreducibly handsome vampires of The Vampire Diaries and Twilight, who can conveniently maintain their sanity and good looks without drinking human blood, Daybreakers's vampires draw on the ravaged spectre of Nosferatu (the 1922 version suffices, but Herzog's 1979 enhancement is just mindblowing) to suggest a world where failure to feed causes vampires to gnaw on their own flesh and blood until they manifest as hideous sub-vampires. (This becomes especially key to the theme of "othering," which this film also develops to a sufficiently unexpected level for a conventional action flick.)

Now, in the pursuit of this cure Edward's intentions are ultimately altruistic: having been turned into a vampire against his will by a brother who far prefers the condition to life as a human, Edward hopes to save the human race from extinction, and offer it freedom from vampire predation. Meanwhile, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill) has a different end in mind: namely, cornering a whole new market for financial gain, while allowing the human race to repopulate just enough to keep a high-end commercial market for real blood afloat as well. Blood-suckers, business men -- the line is quickly blurred in this film despite efforts to humanize Charles through a side-plot about his human daughter.

But here comes the catch. Willem Dafoe, looking a bit like something fresh from the horrors of Eden, enters the scene as Lionel "Elvis" Cormac, a member of a small human resistance group. Elvis comes with a curious personal CV: He was a vampire for nine years, but his heart beats like a human's once again. In this way, Elvis is living proof that a cure to the plague exists, and with Edward's help he hopes to test this cure with full scientific rigour, then spread word of its existence across the starving, mutating vampire lands.

Being a conventional action flick, the usual plot twists and turns, the betrayals, the love interest, the convenient timings emerge throughout its whole. Sacrifices are made, and lives unjustly lost, in precisely the sequence one would expect. The CGI is also not sensational, the fight scenes a little tedious, the characters all teetering a little on 2-D, and if you ask me, the very post-production colour palate is verging on cliche.

But the cure in question is to the best of my knowledge unique in the vampire film continuum, and effective. And the way this film approaches "othering" -- of humans by vampires, then sub-vampires by vampires -- is also effective. For these reasons, while no Let the Right One In, or even mainstream hit Interview with a Vampire, Daybreakers clearly punches above the average success rate for vampire films as a whole. So if vampires are your thing, and you're all caught up with True Blood or whatever other vampire series are currently airing, you could do far, far worse than consider Daybreakers for your next evening in.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #37: The Wild Hunt (2009)

All you need is LARP.

I'm really glad that this didn't suck. I'd been waiting for this one to hit the Princess pretty eagerly, since hearing of it and its concept. I dared hope that I could look forward to a Canadian film I could actually endorse with honesty. It's not perfect, but it's good, and left me with the kind of reflective aftertaste that films like Apocalypse Now and Deliverance left me with - that is, a strong brooding on the lizard-brain, violent animal nature in humanity, lurking on the periphery of consciousness and waiting for a chance to assert itself. Powerful film titles to evoke, I know, but the first that came to mind. Wild Hunt doesn't approach their mastery, but is certainly effective in its conceits and is able to work within its own logic.

Wild Hunt follows Erik, a young guy who's girlfriend, Evelyn, has been seeming disaffected towards him and her life. She decides to leave him, and he finds out that she's been immersing herself more and more heavily in the secluded LARP camp that she frequents. Catching some looks from the LARP boys in the car she jumps into, Erik suddenly starts to think that Evelyn has been dishonest in her motivations for leaving and that she's left him for another man. He decides to track her down and speak to her, in a bid to win her back. Things get bad for him. Indeed, the film was much rougher than I had expected, and gave me some sequences I had to work not to flinch from. And not for any gratuitousness.

For those unfamiliar with LARP (Live Action Role-Playing), it's basically Dungeons and Dragons ramped up to its logical conclusion - people in detailed costumes, pretending to be historical or fantastical characters of their own creation in an immersive role-play driven environment. Their conflicts and interactions are governed by Dungeons and Dragons-like game rules, and typically, these activities take the form of large camping events in specialised camp grounds lasting days at a time.

Oddly enough, I actually hadn't expected Wild Hunt to play up the nerdiness of the characters to the degree of comedic effect it went for, and whenever it did it felt pretty hokey and reminded me that I was watching a movie, likely in a theatre with a handful of actual LARPers. I wondered how they were reacting to their representations on the screen. At any rate, it was a bit of fan-service that could probably have been put aside for the much weightier and more interesting characters through which the film does its best work. There are tender and profound moments to be seen, and an ending I absolutely loved.

So: Check it out if you get another chance and support some Canadian filmmaking worthy of your loonies.

Young People Fucking

I rented Young People Fucking last night and can now say that Canadian cinema only needs inventive thinkers, money and plots including sex to entice any film-goer. I thought it was hilarious, dirty, awkward and fun, and wanted to share with the 3 or 4 people who read this blog that I think Canadians should be more supportive of their own country's film making.

There was a time when both the US and the UK decided, "Hey, let's make our fellow Americans/Brits watch movies WE made, rather than letting other countries bank on our populace." At the same time, Canada thought, "Hey! Let's just throw Canadian cinema down the hole and give other countries our money!"

Wouldn't it be cool if Canadians decided to support Canadian films?

Start by renting Young People Fucking, or checking out any other film in the "Canada" section. I really enjoyed Exotica (which can be found under "Canada: Egoyan"), and Mon Oncle Antoine (which is in with the Criterion Collection).