Theatre of the Dead #11 - Resident Evil (2002)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez

Review:


Resident Evil (2002) actually came out before 28 Days Later, but I do not consider that it is this film which revived the zombie genre. It just could not be.

Resident Evil is a survival horror video game first release on the Playstation, and spawned many sequels. Not being an extreme hardcore fan, I am still able to tell this movie adaptation is nothing like the game.

Naked Milla Jovovich is so memoriable in The Fifth Element (1997), they think she have to be naked here.

The movies opens telling us Umbrella is a super-power corporate that deals with military weaponry. A testube breaks and whole office were shut down by a fire-drill, which release poison gases to kill them. Later we see Milla Jovovich wakes up naked in a bathroom, and cant remember nothing. Gamers of the first game may think, so she is gonna explore the place, which is a mason, like in the first game. Nope. She met a self-claimed police officer outside, and a bunch of special forces arrive, and took them down to the lab, in which the mason is just a cover for an entrance. So 90% of the story went on in the underground lab, and the mason is just for show.

The A.I. killing the special forces with lazers. It killed several guys with a single beam and the leader with this.
Why not just the net beams at the first place?
Even better, why didnt you gas them like the others, especially after they take off their masks?

I am not a movie-watcher that usually nitpick plotholes, but I just could not stand this movie. Okay so the mason was a cover for a secret entrance to a highly confidently labratory? Why would you build such a big mason out of nowhere in jungle to cover it up? Why wouldnt you build something that nobody would be willing to visit, like a small wooden house or a public toilet maybe? The special forces found that the map was different, in which a place the map showing should be a dinning hall, turns out to be a place to store monsters. "Maybe Umbrella kept secret from you." Ok. So why they send the special forces down which they can just look and see for themselves? The supercomputer A.I. for the defense apparent enjoy playing pranks and watch people feeling they have a chance before kill them. The laser scene was always mentioned, but in the opening of the movie, when the women stuck halfway at the door of the lift, the computer could kill her moving the lift to the ground. But no. She stops right before the women hit the floor, then move up the lift so the ceiling could kill the women.

Why stop there? You were gonna kill her anyways. Why stop there and go up again?

And the most incomprehensible plot point is that, why does Spence break the T-virus in the lab? He wanted to steal the virus samples for himself. Just take it and leave and everything would be just fine. But he had to throw it to the table and broke it intentionally, just to activiate the security. Brilliant.

So this movie has nothing to do with the game. The game relies on solving mysteries and discovery, but this movie tells us right in the beginning that Umbrella is behind all this. So much for the mystery. When I first saw it I thought Millia Jovovich is Jill or Claire, but no, she is Alice. Who the hell is Alice!? None of the characters were from the game. One character dies and the Michelle Rodriguez character, who fond of him apparently, feels very sad and could not let go. The sorrow music sets in and I could not feel anything. Hell I cant even remember his name.

Day of the Dead reference at the end of the movie.

Also another bad horror movie omen: rock music during action scenes. It is not cool. It's just loud noises and means nothing. Stop putting rock music over anything. I have seen a video on Youtube which put rock music over Pokemon videos. It is stupid and not cool. It's just not.

Resident Evil movie also spawned many sequels, and like any other movies series it shunk deeper and deeper in stupidity. Comparing it to Silent Hill, the Silent Hill movie is superior in so many levels that it does resemble the game in some way. This one? It is just not Resident Evil.

Theatre of the Dead #10 - Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Director: Edgar Wright Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield

Review:


Shaun of the Dead (2004) is a zombie comedy that not only make fun of zombies like its predecessors such as Braindead, but also plays around the cliches also. I would not say this is a spoof on the zombie genre, since apparently the director Edgar Wright like the zombie cliches and pays homage to them rather than makes fun of them.

Shaun is an everyday un-successful guy in london. He has a boring job, disrespected by his co-workers, have a friend that everybody hates, and broke up with his girlfriend because he goes to the same pub with his best friend on every date. And one day when Shaun was doing his daily routines, zombies rages.

The zombies are in the Romero type so actually they does not poses whole lot of threat to our heros. Shaun didnt even realize the street were occupied by the zombies when he went out to buy a bottle of milk. Besides the comic routines, we actually see more deeply of the characters as the disaster go on. Shaun's best friend is an unemployed bum, who is fat and dirty. However as disaster strikes he seems not affected and keep on his fucked-up attitude even to the end of him, which makes him somehow courageous. The male roomate of Shaun's girlfriend had always been despising Shaun and thought he does not deserves her. However now with the involvement of zombies he turns out to be a selfish coward, and cares nobody other than himself. All he has is his good mouth. Of course Shaun becomes the leader, tries to get the group out of trouble and gets the girl. That went without saying.

This movie contains references to other zombie movies everywhere, and I am not able to spot all of them. A obvious one would be a guy being torn apart by the zombies, which appeared in Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Also there's the "We're coming to get you Barbara" line. As I have put it, these scenes reminded us of the classic zombie films, but not much of a parody or spoof of those.

As far as zombie comedy goes, this movie certainly contained some sad scenes. Most zombie movie ends up with most of the main cast being killed or turned into zombies and this one is no exception. Come to think of it, Shaun's stepfather died after resolving their hatred, his mother died in his own hands, his best friend was bitten and left for dead, and even the bartender of his favourate pub died. That is harsh man.

Shaun of the Dead would become an example on zombie comedies to come, rather than like the classic zombie comedies which mostly rely on slapstick humour.

Theatre of the Dead #9 - 28 Days Later... (2002)

Director: Danny Boyle Stars: Cillian Murphy

Review:

Correct me if I am wrong, but throughout most of the 90s I have not seen and could not find any significant zombie movie. In 2002, the zombie genre was revived by the movie 28 Days Later.

The movie opens with a group of animal rights activist attempts to free some monkeys that were used in scientific experiments. "No! You dont understand! They are infected!" "With what?" "Rage..." Actually it is a virus, that it is highly contagious, that if any blood of the infected gets into you through any orifice, it would turn you into one of them. One of the activist opens the cage, and gets bitten. Several seconds later she gets up and bite the others, and the story actually starts 28 days later of this event.

Jim on an empty street.

Our protagonist, Jim, woke up from a coma in a abandoned hospital. He wandered around and meet the zombies, but saved by two guys with molotov cocktails. They saw some lights outside a flat on a resident building, which supposedly there is no electricity. They met a father and a girl, who have a radio. Despite radio station has been shut down, there is a broadcast about the salvation of the infection by the military. Without water supply, they decided to go visit the source of the broadcast.

Up until 28 Days Later, the virus theory had not been proposed on a movie before, which I'll take it as an inspiration from the video game Resident Evil. However from this point on, there is virtually no development on the cause of zombies, and we took it for granted. Virus theory is the most scientifically possible explaination but there is no more imagination and originality, resulting in many repetitive zombie movies to come. The zombies are also more or less the same. They can run, which adds to a lot of intensity to the chase scenes, in which the Romero zombies actually you can just dodge them.

We watch the zombies closing in with the shadows.

The main theme of this movie is solitary. The scene that Jims woke up alone in the hospital, wandered around in streets which normally would be occupied by hundreds of people, adds to the mood of solitary. When they meet the father and girl, they treated them as guests with alcohol that they had been saving. They were also desperate to see other people, since they could not stand with the loneliness. They drove off on an empty highway, but they were much mild tampered since they have each other. These all surrounds the main theme, and brings a more artistic style to the zombie genre which it have not been done before.

Maltesers?

Despite I myself enjoyed this movie, some people called it a bullshit movie and counted the top 5 bullshit moment in the movie. I do agree that this movie is full of bullshit. The biggest problem with me is the military. In my opinion the movie should have ended right before they reach the military base, and the plot with the military was so stupid it ruined the whole thing. It turns out that the military sends out broadcast to attract people to them for pussies. Yes I am serious. These nymphomaniacs could not stand 28 days without pussies.

Also when Jim turns against them, he suddenly became a super-human that can takes out a group of well trained and armed troopers, with his bare hands, and before that we see him crying for his companion to wait for him. Another bullshit I do agree is that the movies contains embedded advertisements everywhere. When will the manager understand that we consumer will not buy a chocolate because a character in a movie eats it?

From this point on the zombie genre came back full force, but in quantity not in quality. 28 Days Later may have been the most decent zombie movie in recent times, and ironically it is the first to bring the whole genre back, which means it's all downhill from here.

The Hangover (2009)

Director: Todd Philips Stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham

Review:

"After Hangover (2009), everybody is trying to copy the formular." Apparent even the movie plagiarizes itself with its sequel, which have been criticised of being basically the same movie. So why not see the first one instead?

Four friends, Doug, Phil, Stu and Alan went to Las Vegas for a bachelor party to celebrate Doug, who is getting married two days later. They went up on the roof of Caesar Palace, and took vow to forget everything that happen in that night. The next shot we see them lying unconsciencely in a trashed hotel suite, with the gloom missing. There is a tiger in the bathroom, an infant baby in the lock, and Stu lost a teeth. "Where happened last night and What the fuck is Doug?"

Someone said it is hilarious but that was not me. The problem with the jokes is that you could have guessed it like several seconds before. Soon Father-in-law very specifically told Doug to take good care of the car, and you know later in the movie it would get tossed. Alan, who have some mental problems I presume, asked the reception girl "This is not the real Caesar Palace is this?" You know that must be stupid, specially coming from a character that is established to be stupid, and you know the joke already. Later on some chinese gangmembers showed up and told them to give him 80 grands in exchange for Doug. A guy was lying in the back seat with his face covered. Misunderstanding gag. Got it.

Although there does exist a few scenes that had me laughed. When they took a toast on the roof, Alan gave a speech about their friendship and cut his hand with a knife. "Blood brothers". That is really out of place and really funny. 

I was hoping a story would be pieced together, since we see Phil try to connect all the pieces of information together, writing down what happened at what time. Unfortunately however, all the pieces were incoherent and independent. There was a tiger in the bathroom because they stole it from Mike Tyson. Stu lost a teeth because Phil bet he is not a good enough dentist to pull out his own tooth. There was naked chinese man in the trunk because Phil won money with him and thought he was his lucky charm. Ok that is funny I'll give to that.

The characters are also pretty shallow. Alan is sort of a comic relief, Phil does not have much interesting to say or do, and Doug disappeared most of the time. The trip to find out the explaination of the situation is a comedic routines but not something that develops the characters. Except Stu though. Before this trip he was in relationship with a really mean dominatrix. During the black out he married a stripper, and found that actually the stripper is a much better girl, and decided to broke up with his girlfriend and date the stripper. I like how understandable the stripper is to a point that is sympathising, that it is Las Vegas and their wedding was just stupid, and Stu just could not treated the wedding as if it never happened. I was going to use the word "battling", but actually there is no battle. Who would want his original girlfriend even without the stripper anyway.

The Hangover was highly successful commercially and critically, but I did not watch it when it first came out nor have a high expectation, since I usually do not find American comedies all that funny. I am not someone that always demand inner meanings, implications or artistic values, and I do enjoy movies like Scary movie (2000), but this is just not such hilarious and I did not laugh that whole many times.

Noir de Noir #1 - Double Indemnity (1944)

Director: Billy Wilder Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

Review:

Film Noir is a term used to describe a genre of crime drama with certain common story elements and visual style.  Strict definition of film noir would be a research topic in film school, but some movies are more noir than the others. An american crime drama with characters all having plans on each other, suspicious silhouette, narration spilling rhetorical words, would most likely be a film noir. Recent movies seldom falls into pure Noir catergory, but usually blended into other genres, such as action (Sin City, 2005), or science fiction (Terminator, 1991, according to some opinions as techno-noir). 

Double Indemnity (1944) is a prime example of classic Noir, although the term was not even coined by 1944.   It tells the story in flashback of a insurance salesman, Neff, talking on a phone to his superior, badly wounded. He confesses to him that it is he who committed the murder.

Neff confessing on the phone

It all started since Neff went to visit Mr. Dietrichson at his house, but Dietrichson was not in. Instead he met Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson. On the first sight Neff was already fond of her, and apparently she took the flirt too, so much so that wanted to conspire with Neff to murder his husband, Mr. Dietrichson, for insurance money. Neff tricked Mr. Dietrichson to sign an accidental insurance contract, and came up with a clever plan to kill him on a train since in such situation the insurance company will pay double, "double indemnity". Mr. Dietrichson had to go a business trip, and on the way to the train station, Neff and Phyllis killed him on the car. Neff subsituted Dietrichson to board the train, and jump off half-way. They dump the body on the track to let people think Dietrichson fell off and broke his neck. At first time everybody thought so, until his superior Keyes got suspicious on knowing Dietrichson had a broken leg but did not claim any damage.

Venetican blind shadow can be seen anywhere in the movie: a visual element of Film Noir.

As I have mentioned this movie was made in the early days of film noir, and the style was still in development. We follows the eyes of the murderer Neff, and creates an atomsphere of suspense on the worries of Neff about committing it and his fear of others knowing it. It was done perfectly as planned at the time it was done, but it seems everything had went wrong on his walk of way home. He murders for woman and money, then for a curiosity on whether he can fool the insurance company better than the others, perfect crime, but later only wants to cover it up. It captures the menality of having a guilty conscience and the fear of everything falling apart and transcent it to the audience with style. A worrying man sits under the shadow of venetican blind, talks in narration about his calculations and thoughts, and makes you feel as if you were put in the situation.

Although I do not fully buy the plot a whole lot. Neff has meet Phyllis only twice, and if she took that flirt so easily she is probably a whore, and you want to conspire a murder with her? Neff does not have any thing on her so if she refuses to share the money Neff could not do nothing about it. Later when self-preservation comes to mind, he kills Phyllis without a blink of an eye. Smart. But why didnt you get smart at first? Moreover, why go back to confess when he wants and able to flee to the border?

Anyways, it was an early example in the genre so the Noir style may not be so strong. Though it gets me into the story, personally I do not rate this movie as high as it has been ranked. The thing that Keyes lights a match for Neff at the end, which it was Neff who always light matches for Keyes in the whole movie, seems cliche and could be seen coming a mile away, though you could not blame the movie for it was new at that time. As a whole experience, I was satisified but not stunned.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Director: Wes Anderson Stars: Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwartzman

Review:

Three brothers that have not spoken to each other for a year went for a spiritual journey in India, to become brothers again. The elder brother Francis have it all planned out, which means sightseeings and meditations. All three brothers have their own reasons of coming to India and hesitations to share with each other. But the journey which the other two brothers Jack and Peter thought to be only a formality to comfort Francis, turned into a quest for facing their past and bond.

Very Indian style train journey, in the Western eyes I must say.

On the first viewing of this movie I get a bit lost and do not know what is going on or what it is trying to tell. Nothing really exciting happens. There are some comedic moments on the Caucasions meeting India culture, but that's it. But on the second viewing I compare it to Lost in Translation (2003), in which both involves people sortof trapped in un-familiar culture, changing from alienated to attracted by the culture, and the establishment of bonds with each other.

Francis (Owen Wilsoon), despite passionate about bonding, was upset about Peter (Adrian Brody) using his belt.

The exposition in the beginning was done in a way with multiple layers. We know the facts by the brothers telling another, ending with the phase "do not tell the other". Besides telling us what they were going through, it shows that they do not trust each other. They have complains with each other that Francis is always trying to decides for the others, Peter is depressed on having a new-born baby, and Jack is struggling with his own relationship. The changing point here is that they came across a group of kids, doing honestly I dont know what in the river, were in danger. They tried to save them but one could not be savaged. The three brothers attended the funeral, and related to the funeral of their father, in which I imagine they did not attend fully.

It is a little hard to review this movie because you do not know actually what you have learned, but that maybe the whole beauty of it. We witness things and encounter situations, and we got matured. Thinking back of what we have learned from those experiences, we could not tell for sure but we have changed.  That is the feeling this movie gave me. At the end they threw away the packages which contained things of their deceased Dad, symbolising they have thrown away their burden and their attachment to their past father.

However the India overtone that many people appreciate did not work out for me, maybe because I am an Eastener and India culture is not so distant to me. It does polish up India a lot, or else I wouldnt think you would stand it. Overall, I do enjoy Lost in Translation more, considering I am fasincated with the Japanese culture so much more. The Darjeeling Limited is for one that would like to take a spiritual journey.

Theatre of the Dead #8 - Braindead/Dead-Alive (1992)

Director: Peter Jackson Stars: Timothy Balme, Diana Penalvar, Elizabeth Moody

Review:

In the mid-80s to most of the 90s, horror comedies dominated the horror genre. Most horror movies at that time are horror comedies. I imagine the mentality goes like this: people getting used to gory stuff and instead of getting scared, they laughed at the scenes. Well, if you not gonna scare anyway, then laugh. Braindead is one of the slapstick horror comedies that came out at the time, but the gore scenes were so exaggerated that it really is the goriest movie ever made.

A manager (?) of a zoo brings back a rare rat monkey from Skull Island. If the monkey bites a person, the person will be turned into a zombie, and go bite other people. It did not really explain why but natives from the Skull Island believed it is related to black magic. Also judging from the theme, that includes a gypsy old fortune teller speaking about dark forces and a blessed necklace that gets our protagonist out of trouble numerous times, I believe the movie suggests it is black magic. A young man, who is not too good with people, go to the zoo for a date. His mom, which have a lot of presence from the mom in Psycho (1960), followed him and got bitten by the rat monkey. So there you go, zombies and more zombies.

Plot does not matter much here, since this movie is all about gore and comedic moments. The opening scene sets the tone of the movie. The zoo representative was accidentally bitten by the monkey on the hand. His workers, who possess native knowledge, screamed "Zingaya" and severed his hand. The workers then noticed he got another wound on the other hand. They screamed "Zingaya" and severed his another hand. The workers then noticed he got another wound on his forehand.

ZINGAYA!!!

There are so many memorable scenes: the Kung-Fu priest, the zombie intercourse and the zombie baby who can take a lot of abuse, and of course the climax party scene. The last 40 minutes or so is just all blood, severed limbs, intestines, and more blood. In the review of Return of the Living Dead, I said there is no way to kill this type of zombies. Well there actually is a way. You grind them into meat pots, which is what they do here. When you see a guy grind all zombies in a party into a mesh of flesh, your care for the plot goes out of the window.

The funniest scene in my opinion: this seemingly clumsy fat guy goes apeshit and chops up a lot of zombies.

It is not that kind of movie that contains satires or deeper meanings, but just plain entertainment from gore and slapstick humor. I am not a big fan of slapstick, but it do set a lighter tone for all the gore scenes here or else I would have puked. I did not laugh too hard nor did I scared a lot, but at least I am entertained. Peter Jackson of course went on and made the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which is hard to imagine after seeing this.

Oh god.

Up until now we have seen the slow moving Romero zombies, the immortal "Return of the Living Dead" zombies, zombies that can learn to play toys and zombies that just fell down and die to infects others as in Night of the Creeps. We have seen the dead rise up because of radiation from outer space (that's actually is the explanation in Night of the Living Dead), voodoo, re-animation medicine, chemical, alien slug, or it is because hell just full. In the late 90s zombie movies took a rest and when we come back we will jump into modern zombie apocalypses.