Welcome to the first review of Summer of ZOMBIES! Today I will be reviewing the first Resident Evil movie! Uh, the first live action movie, that is. You know...the one with Milla Jovovich and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson.
Time for some background...Resident Evil is a video game series developed by Capcom, and is about a series of viruses that turn people into zombies (Yes...I know there is more to it than that. But that's the basics.). I have never played the games, but I DO know the basic plot of each game, as well as the major characters. Anyways, the real villain behind the whole series is the Umbrella corporation. If it wasn't for them there wouldn't be ANY zombies. (Yes..I know about Wesker...but again, not important to understand this movie!)
So, here's the plot analysis. There will be spoilers, but this movie IS 10 years old. If you haven't seen it yet than skip to the next paragraph. Resident Evil starts off in an Umbrella research facility called the Hive. A T-Virus outbreak locks all the workers inside to die. We then follow Alice, a woman inside the mansion that sits on top of the Hive, who wakes up and can't remember a thing. She is found by a cop and a group of Umbrella special ops who take her to the Hive to shut down the AI...the Red Queen. After shutting down the Red Queen, they accidentally release the zombie hoards, and are now racing against the clock to escape from this place before it gets sealed away forever.
I will, as usual, say some positive things about the movie...well, to start off, I did enjoy it. Yes, the whole group of people escaping zombies has been done to DEATH, but I still enjoy it. Also, from what I can tell, this movie could fit into the game's canon. There isn't any game characters (That I know of) in this movie, and none of the events covered in the game are covered here (Except one...but it still fits. And is awesome.), so you could say this movie is a canon side story. From what I hear this is completely thrown out the window in the sequels, but for this movie it could. There is also nice little nods to the game series. Raccoon City is seen (And the incident there mentioned.), the Nemesis program is also mentioned, and besides Zombies there are other Resident Evil monsters shown (Such as those awesome dogs!). Some Resident Evil fans may complain that it has nothing to do with Resident Evil and could very easily been edited and released as a non-Resident Evil movie, but I kinda like it because of that. It has the elements that people loved about Resident Evil, kept it away from main stories in the series, and at the same time kept it more original so that movie goers who never heard about the series wouldn't be lost. Also, the characters are mostly good (If a little cliched) and the twists in the story are well done (But again, cliched). There is also some "Alice in Wonderland" references that are very subtle and interesting.
Now to the negative side of things...well, for starters, the CGI is VERY faithful to the original game...and by that I mean the CGI looks like it came from the Playstation 1. It really harks back to Anderson's OTHER big video game movie...Mortal Kombat. Again, that is NOT a compliment. The other effects are alright, but the CGI is terrible. Also, the movie is a bit slow. Granted, in the first few minutes we see the death of hundreds, but it's all by drowning. We don't get an ACTUAL Zombie attack until a half hour in! In fact, we get four people that die by laser BEFORE they even know the zombies are there! Not only that, but Alice herself doesn't kill a zombie until almost the END! She does fight some zombie dogs, but that's it!
Another thing I never understood...how come they never IMMEDIATELY shoot the heads? I mean...are there no Zombie movies in this universe? I mean, even so, why do they always shoot at the legs? If I wanted to kill anyone right away I would shoot for the head! Also, if you see someone trying to eat you...do NOT yell "FREEZE! I DON'T WANT TO SHOOT!" Kill them! I'll give a pass on Alice and Spence, since they are suffering from Amnesia, but the others are trained soldiers! Not only soldiers, but special ops! You THINK they would no better!
All that aside, this WAS a fun film, at least in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, this is no masterpiece, but if you want a good Zombie survival flick this is a decent choice. Also, you can see Raccoon City in a movie! How cool is that!
Interesting little fact...the original director was George Romero...yes, the Father of the Modern Zombie George Romero! Guess what...they fired him! They fired him from a Resident Evil movie...WHAT?! From what I can tell he wrote a loose adaptation of the first game, and that's why they fired him, because they didn't want just a movie version of the game. I respect them for that...but still, you fired George Romero from a zombie movie! That's messed up!
Well, the first review of Summer of ZOMBIES! is finished! Return next time for my review of Resident Evil: Apocalypse!
Word of Warning: This is NOT a movie for kids. It is rated R, and deserves it. Barely. Honestly, the reason why this film is R is because of the F words. There is other swearing as well, but the F words are what push it over. There isn't all too many F words (There's less than ten, I mean), but if there is over one it gets R. In fact, the violence and gore is about PG-13 level. Only a couple of the Zombies are "gory" and even then it doesn't get worse than a hole in the head or a few cuts. The goriest thing is a beheading...which again, is very clean cut. There is blood, but ironically it isn't a blood bath. The Zombies eating is very clean, so much so that you barely hear the victims scream! Don't get me wrong, I am NOT complaining. I am not a fan of gore, and applaud the movie for not relying on it. My point is that it suffers from the same thing Terminator 2 does: A PG-13 movie given F words so that it will get a hard rating. If I may rant a bit, that is awful, movie makers! Adding F words to make your movie an R is alienating to people! I think you should just make the movie you WANT to make, and if it gets a PG-13 than so be it! I'll get off my soap box now and finish. Parents, this movie has Zombies... obviously. This movie has extreme swearing. This movie has very minor gore and a quite a few clean deaths. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Final Verdict: 7/10
I am The R2 Dude and this is The R2 View!
No comments:
Post a Comment