Someone’s still paying to watch these films
as they don’t seem to be stopping any time soon.
The fifth in the series of Paul W.S.
Anderson’s video game adaptations, the films' plots have long since diverged
from those of the games, with the film universe currently a world overrun by zombies
infected by the Umbrella Corporation’s T Virus. In this case, the corporation
is being run by the rogue AI from the first film, the Red Queen, seeking to
annihilate human life using brainwashed clones as well as the monsters created
by the corporation.
Our heroine Alice (Anderson’s wife Milla
Jovovich) finds herself in Umbrella’s secret test centre, an old Russian
submarine station deep under the icy waters of the Arctic circle. There the T
virus is tested in recreated city sections, representing New York, Tokyo and
Moscow, where infected clones attack the rest. These are the sets for a number
of protracted action sequences as a rescue team is sent in to get Alice and
double agent Ada Wong out.
Lots and lots (and lots) of CGI, mostly for
crappy uses like the oversized version of the Licker monster from the games,
but the opening sequence during the credits features a slow motion action
sequence in reverse, showing what happened to Alice and the ship of clones from
the fourth film. It’s quite an engaging opener, eventually reaching a start
point where the sequence plays out in chronological order and full speed, the
long sequence now over in seconds.
Really though, Resident Evil 5 is just
trash, so-so fan pleasing stuff with zombie soldiers, lots of guns and
explosions and a little bit of maternal angst thanks to the clones for those after a sliver of cerebral activity.
Initial thoughts on hearing of this remake
were that it fell into the wide body of unnecessary Hollywood adaptations of previously successful, usually subtitled films. Along with the propensity for sequels, the
number of remakes highlights the urge to limit risk in Hollywood, narrowing the
chance of original stories getting out.
David Fincher as director sounded promising
though, particularly as with more recent films like Social Network he has
proven able to turn something that sounds dodgy - a dry tale with an unlikeable lead
- into a riveting watch.
Nevertheless, The Girl With The Dragon
Tattoo swiftly slips into redundancy - two years after the original’s release,
it’s still set in Sweden with all the players trying out Scandinavian accents of
varying quality, except for our lead Daniel Craig who plays it mostly English.
Whilst his sad dog eyes help bring a
gravitas to his version of lead character Mikael, he ultimately feels less
vulnerable and less like a normal guy with a passions for investigative
journalism - his broad shoulders give him the air of someone who spends proportionately
more time at the gym than the library.
Rooney Mara conveys the spiky exterior of
Lisbeth guarding a scared and vulnerable core very well, but ultimately little
different to Noomi Rapace’s original version.
Worse than this is the ending that
ultimately betrays Lisbeth’s character, turning it into just another hokey
thriller and undermining her fierce independence. It’s hard to understand how
those responsible for deciding to film this in English could change such a key
theme.
Despite the odd and gratuitously music
video stylings of the opening credits sequence and some pretty camera work, this
sequel of an adaptation is totally pointless and worse than the original.
Avoid.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
This sequel to the original video game
adaptation takes some elements of the game sequel - the zombies spread out into
Racoon City and the Nemesis, a hulking, mutated man with a rocket launcher, which stalks our heroes.
Pleasantly surprised to see Jared Harris
pop up here, but it was filmed in 2004 before the likes of Fringe and Guy
Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes sequel presumably brought him access to the bigger bucks.
Milla Jovovich’s Alice has been infected
with the T-Virus by the Umbrella Corporation, having being abducted at the end
of the first film, but it makes her stronger rather than into a zombie due to bonding with her insides or somesuch guff.
As the zombies spread throughout the city,
Umbrella puts a lock down in place and Alice’s only hope is to locate Dr.
Ashford (Harris)’s daughter so that he
can airlift Alice and whichever rag-tag survivors make it along with her.
Ashord’s daughter is the model for the Red
Queen, Umbrella’s Hive AI from the first movie and a recurring character in the series with a creepy 'homicidal little posh girl' vibe, and
the Nemesis provides a couple of action-packed sequences what with his
mini-gun and rocket launcher, but despite the background being more intricate
than a crappy horror series needs Resident Evil: Apocalypse is only okay,
better than many recent zombie flicks due to their sheer awfulness.
Ultimately there are hundreds of horror films
to see before you would want to give this forgettable effort a try, but at least it’s
better than the Saw sequels.
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