Harry here. CG makeup.... where has it looked as good as MAKEUP? Get me karo syrup and rigid collodion. Spirit gum and a can of liquid latex. That spare chicken bone will help, ah now blend blend blend... Oh yeah baby. Fuck CG MAKEUP. Here ya go...
Harry,
Long time reader, first time scooper. Call me Choptop.
I've just returned from a screening of Resident Evil: Genesis in Burbank. Since the movie was a preview print, some things were incomplete(music, effects, etc).
Let me begin by saying that I usually make it a point to avoid video game movies, but I do love zombie flicks and have often expressed my concern for the absence of this subgenre from theaters in recent years. And it was free.
All I can say is: Dear God if this movie is an omen of things to come, please don't let them go through with that Dawn of the Dead remake. I can see it now. CG make-up, techno soundtrack, dull, lifeless characters and Joan of Arc in nothing but a napkin. Oh, wait, that part was good.
I'm sure they intended for this movie to be fun. But why can't things be fun and intelligent anymore? Dawn was fun. But it also had smart, realistic characters that we cared about. No such luck in RE:G. We get no plot, throw-away characters and incoherent MTV editing and camera movements.
I often found myself wondering how the characters got from one place to another. And it's so fast paced that scenes that should have been suspenseful are just annoying.
Before the screening I was worried that they were going to try to pull off a PG-13 rating for this movie. When I found out that it was R I had higher hopes. But there was no gore whatsoever. Why!? It's a freakin' zombie movie! No one goes to zombie movies with a less is more mentality. It's not Hitchcock. It's not the type of film where we want to imagine what just happened off-screen. We want gore shoved down our throats. Good, red, creative, Savini gore. Not a couple of shoddy, CG, half zombie heads and dogs drenched in syrup. With a few simple cuts this movie could easily be PG-13.
Milla Jovavitch's(Jill Valentine) acting hasn't gotten much better since Chaplin. But she does offer us what they call "brief nudity" and, at the end, a surprising glimpse of the beaver shot(DVD's of this are gonna sell like hotcakes).
The worse part of the film is the Michelle Rodriguez(Rain) character. I have a hard time buying these girl from the streets with a chip on their shoulder and a quip in their heart roles. She doesn't pull it off believably. I was glad when she was bitten by a zombie because I thought she might die soon. Unfortunately, as usual, for some reason it took a hell of a lot longer for her character to change than anyone else in the film.
This film fails on every level. It seems to me that the Resident Evil games try to look and feel like movies, but the movie tries hard to look and feel like a video game. It's less scary, less moody and less atmospheric than the game. The flick is suitable for 12-year old, die-hard fans of the game.
Not for people looking for a solid zombie flick.
CHOPTOP
