Horrors of War

Happy Halloween, everyone! Here's the first Halloween review ever, let's hope we have another next year!

Horrors of War

Rating (from metacritic.com): N/A (3.4/10 from IMDB

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
FILM SYNOPSIS: 'Feeling the pressure from Allied advance, Hitler unleashes his secret weapons giving rise to a type of warfare the world has never seen. Throughout the European theater of WWII, Lieutenant John Schmidt comes face to face with these "weapons." The Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S., precursor to the C.I.A.) initiates missions behind enemy lines to find the source of the weapons terrorizing U.S. soldiers fighting the Third Reich. Schmidt is joined by Captain Joe Russo and his group of war-hardened GIs who have experienced for themselves the all-too-real horrors of war in battle. Together, they must find and destroy Hitler's horde of nightmare weapons before his horrific vision can be fully realized.' Written by Philip R. Garrett

Source: My personal collection (sadly)

Review:

I own this movie and I’ve never been about to sit through the whole thing. I usually get bored about 20 minutes in, and find something more interesting to watch, like drying paint. But, because I foolishly let people vote, I now have to sit through the whole thing.

I will find where you sleep and poop on your face in the night, you dirty bastards.

Set in late 1944, or mid 1945, this movie is about a unit (or units) of American GIs that first stumble across, then are later set out to destroy, Nazi super-soldiers. Yep, that’s the plot. Unlike ‘SS Doomtrooper’ produced by the Sci-Fi channel, this movie avoided everything that could have made it fun. I can’t really get too much into the plot, because it confused the hell out of me.

The movie starts with an under-strength infantry squad taking out a machinegun emplacement (in a manner that would make a seasoned ground pounder weep in frustration), then running into a zombie. They hit it in the head once, making its helmet pop off, then pop it in the brainpan again. This starts many mistakes that could have been resolved by talking to a real infantry veteran of the era. Helmets aren’t designed to stop bullets, they’re there to stop shrapnel and ricochets. For a great example, watch Band of Brothers.

Then, we jump back six months, and follow a shitty version of the Dirty Dozen get dropped behind enemy lines… In occupied France. Because the writers lost me, I can’t tell if this is suppose to be March 1945, which was when Allied forces were entering Germany. But, if it was September 1944, it would make this work. Who gives a crap? Not the directors, that's for sure.
This group of criminals ends up stumbling across a werewolf (not a zombie) and getting killed. The group is lead by an asshole of a captain, who reminded me of military men portrayed in Vietnam movies, who gets torn to bits. The whole goal of this sequence is to have one of this team end up bitten by the werewolf, so he can be used later. That’s it. It’s about a third of the movie that could have been summed up in a 5 minute flashback.

Back to the present time, we meet another captain, and are then subjected to another overly long flashback, which was suppose to take place right after D-Day, but because the writers were incapable of communicating the most basic of information, we’re guessing again. This group of soldiers - this time numbering near a dozen, encounters a zombie. Woop-di-fucking-doo.
The flashback ends, and another under strength squad is sent to infiltrate behind enemy lines… This is all supposed to be done by the OSS, but it’s so terribly planned, I can’t believe anything about these missions.

Fine, let’s get to the end of this piece of shit. The team finds the evil Nazi lab, another zombie, and the evil scientist that’s been doing all this. Of course, the scientist isn’t all that evil, but he gets infected with this serum, and turns into a zombie thing. During this, the GI who was bitten by a werewolf changes, and gets killed by the zombie in a heavy foreshadowed way. The leader of the mission injects himself with the serum and becomes a zombie too, and punches a hole in the other zombie. He then begs his own men to kill him.
The End.

God damn, this movie sucked. The worst part was that it had so much potential. The script was bad, but it just needed a bit of editing. The directing wasn’t terrible, and neither was the acting, it just wasn’t that good either. I knew what the writers/directors were trying to do, they just couldn’t do it. Either they didn’t have the skill, the time or the budget to really do what they wanted, and just ran with it anyway.
There’s so much about this movie that they could have just dropped, or shortened, and it would have made a much better movie. At one point, a squad of soldiers ends up running through a graveyard. Somehow, they missed several enemy soldiers, a tank and an artillery piece. How does this happen? Then, they run into the forest and the enemy is unable to locate them. I’m sorry, but this is like throwing a rock to distract a Beholder. I just don’t know how the people who are responsible for this movie didn’t even talk to someone who’s been near a battlefield. Or even play a first person shooter video game, for god’s sake!
To add to this, there’s a scene I think is suppose to be taking place during the Normandy Beach landings, but due to the poor production value, I couldn’t be sure. I do know that Ohio looks nothing like Normandy, or does a dry riverbed look like the seashore.

A while ago, a company called Pinnacle Entertainment Group made a role-playing game called Weird War II. It has zombies, werewolves, magic and all that, set during the war. I think I was the only person who bought this game, and it felt like the writers may have read the covers in a game store. I wanted to like this movie, I really, really did.

Because of this movie, I want nothing to do with Ohio. I will never visit the state, and I will start working on a list of jokes about Ohio. Fuck Ohio. If this is the best movie the state can produce, I think we should let Indiana take them over.



Final Thoughts: Horrors of War? More like Horrors of Cinema…

It was a UGLY movie.

Coming Soon: Lost In Translation

(Also, don't forget to vote for the 20th review. And, expect an informative entry soon.)

Saved!

Saved!

Rating (from metacritic.com): 62/100

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
When a girl attending a Christian high school becomes pregnant, she finds herself ostracized and demonized, as all of her former friends turn on her.

Source: My personal collection

Review:

It’s finally happened. I thought it wouldn’t have happened so soon, but it just couldn’t be avoided.

I finally have a movie I can’t find fault with.

But, don’t worry; the next review will be a terrible movie.

Let’s get rolling, shall we? I loved this movie so much because it’s not hateful, it handles a touchy subject tastefully, and it leaves you in a better place than it found you.

Saved takes place in a fictional Christian high school outside of Baltimore. We first meet Mary, whose father passed away when she was young, and has accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior for most of her life. She lives a perfect little suburban Christian life, with her perfect little Christian boyfriend and attends the perfect little Christian school, with all of her perfect little Christian friends. See, she has the perfect life.

But, life isn’t actually perfect, no matter what anyone tells you. After Mary learns that her boyfriend may be gay, and hitting her head, she receives a ‘vision’ of Jesus. She believes he wants her to have sex with her boyfriend, to save him from the ‘evils’ of homosexuality. What he actually says is something a bit different, like most things people say God says. When see comes to, she begins work on ‘de-gaying’ her boyfriend. They kiss, fondle and eventually go ‘all the way.’ (I have to say, the writers and directors really captured just how awkward the first time a boy touches a girl’s boobies.) But, before Mary has sex with her boyfriend, she talks with her best friend, Hillary Faye (played by Mandy Moore), about virginity, while at a gun range. Hillary Faye says that God/Jesus can restore your ‘spiritual’ virginity, then starts shooting a gun. Because good Christian girls defend their virginity with deadly force. No, seriously. “I’m saving myself for marriage. And I’ll use force if necessary.”

A few weeks after having sex, school starts and Mary joins her friends in the car pool, where we meet Macaualay Culkin’s fantastic character, Roland. This is a terrible, terrible pun as his character is a paraplegic and in a wheelchair. The group arrives at Mary’s boyfriend’s house and she is total that he’s been sent off to Mercy House, the place where Christian parents go send their failures in parenting, because his father found gay porn in his room. Crushed by this news, Mary tries to make her way through school. She also meets Patrick, the principal’s son, and wonders if she did the right thing in giving her boyfriend her virginity. We also meet Cassandra, the lone Jewish girl in this Perfect Christian school, and by the end of the first day, we see the beginnings of romance between Cassandra and Roland.

Time passes, and Mary discovers she might be pregnant. Rather than buy a test, she steals it, for fear of anyone discovering her secret and ‘shame.’ The results are positive, and she goes to Planned Parenthood to confirm the test results, when she’s spotted by Cassandra and Roland, and the following dialogue is exchanged:
“There’s only one reason good Christian girls go to the Planned Parenthood…”
“She’s planting a pipe-bomb?!?”
“Okay, two reasons.”
After having to come to terms with the fact that she is with child, Mary ends up visiting Hillary Faye’s house, where she’s hosting a prayer circle to ‘cure’ Mary’s (now former) boyfriend of his ‘curse’ of homosexuality. With her world crumbling, Mary lashes out at Hillary Faye, who kicks her out of the Christian Jewels and out of her house. This allows hanger-on Tia (played by Heather Matarazzo, who always seems to play this type of girl) to join the Christian Jewels.

As the year progresses, Mary begins to question her faith and begins to look at her life, and the things in it, with different eyes. When Halloween comes, she is totally separated from the Jewels and Hillary Faye, but has no one is there to fill the void in her life. It becomes obvious that Patrick wants to be her friend (and more), but Mary pushes him away. Her former friends are asked by Pastor Skip to ‘help’ her, which results in a drive-up exorcism, where Hillary Faye throws a bible at Mary while stating she is ‘filled with Christ’s love.’ Mary points out that the book isn’t a weapon and walks away. To cap off this terrible day, she talks with her boyfriend, and finds herself unable to tell him of his impending fatherhood. While it isn’t stated, I believe that she realizes that he’s really gay, and she needs to move on.
After Halloween, Mary is able to hide her pregnancy because no one at the school, except for maybe the teachers, have any idea what a pregnant girl would look like, and even the teachers would have trouble believing one of their students had had sex, much less gotten with child. Eventually, Cassandra figures things out, and confronts Mary. Mary denies it, but Cassandra tricks her into admitting it. Instead of mocking her, as we have been lead to expect, Cassandra comforts Mary, and soon they become true friends, along with Roland.

Soon prom, and the baby’s due date, approaches; Mary, Cassandra and Roland come to find themselves at odds with Hillary Faye. In addition to this, Mary’s mother and Pastor Skip realize they’re in love with each other, but Pastor Skip is married, unable to get a divorce because ‘God doesn’t like them’ or something. Roland posts a pre-plastic surgery picture of Hillary Faye all over the school, resulting in an escalation between her and Cassandra. This culminates in Hillary Faye spray painting all kinds of hateful things all over the school, then planting the evidence on Cassandra and Mary, which leads to Mary’s secret being accidentally revealed to Pastor Skip and the whole school. After this bomb lands in her mother’s and Pastor Skip’s lap, he believes that Mary’s pregnancy is punishment from God for their sinful ways, and says that only if Mary is sent to Mercy House, will he continue to see her. He then expels Cassandra and Mary for defacing the school, even though all he has is some spray paint cans…

When prom night comes, Mary is getting ready to go to Mercy House. However, Cassandra and Roland have other plans for her. They get her to sneak out of her house and join them in town. There they reveal that they have evidence that proves Hillary Faye bought the paint, and they plan on attending the prom. They also have Patrick arrive in a limo, and Mary agrees to go to prom with him.
After they arrive, they are spotted by Hillary Faye, who calls them out publicly. Pastor Skip decides to let them stay, but Hillary Faye can’t let it go. Roland produces a credit card bill showing the sale of the spray paint. He is thwarted, as Hillary Faye points out that he had stolen this card and was using it. Hillary Faye is then forced to swear to God she didn’t graffiti the school. When she does, she’s caught by Tia, who discovered a receipt for the spray paint in Hillary Faye’s van, and is not only humiliated for defacing the school and framing someone else, but she also lied and swore a false oath.
She flees the prom, and runs into Mary’s ex-boyfriend, his boyfriend, and others from Mercy House. Mary and the others follow her, running into them, and the ex-boyfriend discovers he’s going to be a father. There’s then quite a bit of powerful dialogue, where we must wonder: is everything in the bible the way it’s suppose to be? Do we let ourselves judge others for what they are, not who they are?
Of course, Hillary Faye is still running around out there, and starts driving like a woman possessed. In her very screwed up state, she decides to take down the huge Jesus she had put up over the summer, and charges it in her van. At the last second, she changes her mind and clips it, while trying to avoid it. Cassandra tells her that was awesome, and Roland comes the aid of his older sister.

It wouldn’t be an ending if the baby wasn’t born, would it? Mary goes into labor, and her mother, realizing that her daughter and her happiness is all that should be important to her, arrives to ride with her to the hospital. Mary gives birth to a healthy baby girl, and is surrounded by the people who truly care about her: Her mother, her friends; Cassandra and Roland, her baby’s father and his boyfriend and her boyfriend, Patrick.

So, let’s talk a bit about this movie. This movie isn’t anti-Christian. No, really, it’s not. It’s anti-hypocrisy. It’s about how even if you believe in something, the important thing is people and how you treat them. I could go on and on about how his movie could help Christian explain their views, but it would fall on deaf ears. If you want a movie that mocks Christianity, this is the movie you will see. If you want a movie that belittles the Evangelical Christian way of life, that is the movie you will see. If you’re willing to view this movie as a heart-felt, subtle, and caring movie, you’ve gotten the movie the writer and director wanted to make.

At the very core of this movie is redemption and forgiveness. It shows that people are people, and that means they are imperfect. Even Hillary Faye is only trying to do what she feels is right for the outcasts, and the school when she gets them kicked out. But, she’s only human, just like you and me.

I can not urge you enough to see this movie. It is a fantastic piece and you will enjoy it, maybe for the comedy, or maybe for the deeper topics. It’s up to you how you want to enjoy this movie, but I can almost guarantee that you will enjoy it. It’s well directed, superbly cast and acted, and is extremely well written. Watch this movie and tell me it wasn’t good or that you didn’t enjoy yourself. I dare you.


Final Thoughts: What would Jesus do? Laugh his ass off and enjoy this movie.

It was a GOOD+ movie.

Coming Soon: Horrors of War

Krull

Krull

Rating (from metacritic.com): N/A (IMBD: 5.8/10)

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
A prince with a fellowship of companions sets out to rescue his bride from a fortress of alien invaders who have arrived on their home planet.

Source: My personal collection

Review:
Krull is the product of the late 70’s/early 80’s fantasy movie craze that swept Hollywood. It could be that people were inspired by the unlikely success of the Star Wars franchise, or it could have been just one of those things. In the era of Conan, Legend, and the Princess Bride, Krull was different. First off, it had a dash of Sci-Fi, with ‘laser lances’ and an evil enemy from the stars. It also had a well-drafted background, which made sense, as well as the sense of a living world. Unlike many other fantasy movies, the writer didn’t feel the need to over-explain every little detail of that world. Things simply were, and you didn’t need a narrator to explain a name like ‘Terrible Slaughter Valley of Damnation.' Not to say the writer took shortcuts to reduce dialogue; it just didn’t need to be explained.

Krull starts with a massive space ship traveling the void towards a planet. The music kind of ruins the feeling, as the composer hadn’t left Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan behind, so I keep thinking the USS Enterprise (with no bloody damned A, B, C, or D) would suddenly appear and strafe the thing.

After a bit of waiting, the thing finally lands on the planet, Krull, and we learn that it’s the Black Fortress and aboard it is The Beast, who leads The Slayers to conquest and pillage. Of course, we have the standard issue prophecy, where man loves woman and blah, blah, blah. You’ve seen a fantasy movie before, you know what this is. Anyway, the good prince is set to marry his lovely princess, but they get attacked by the Slayers (anyone else keep thinking I’m talking about a band?) and after a great battle, the princess is kidnapped, and the prince grievously wounded. The prince is brought back by a Kindly Old Man, who tells him that he must search for The Glaive. (A note: a glaive is polearm weapon, kind of like a spear.)
Off to mountains they go, where the prince reaches his hand in molten lava, and pulls out… some kind of starfish thing? With blades? Huh? I would have called it the Star-Blade or something, but that’s just me. After recovering this ultimate weapon, they run across a wizard who doesn’t seem all that powerful, and is supposed to be a Dwarf. He joins up with them after being scared by a Cyclops, a special effect well done for its time. The Kindly Old Man explains that Cyclops are ‘sad, lonely creatures’ as their race made a deal with The Beast to see the future, but all they can see is the moment of their own deaths. They are then attacked by highwaymen who end up joining the cause because the prince appeals to their sense of honor… I’m just going to let you think about that for a minute… Moving on, they journey about, finding the Emerald Wizard or somesuch, who tries to help them. He can’t see anything about The Beast, as it is too powerful, so they have to go on another journey.

They end up in some dark, evil swamps, and the Emerald Wizard is replaced by a Slayer. With the Emerald Wizard dead, the Kindly Old Man must visit another seer, who kills any who seek her. He enters a cave with a large, very frightening spider. If I had seen this as a kid, I would have flipped out. The special affects for this thing were also awesome for the 80’s, and really make the thing feel real. It turns out the Widow in the Web is an old lover of the Kindly Old Man and had killed his son. Her punishment was to remain in the web. Somehow, the Old Man forgives her. In order to allow his escape, the Widow sacrifices herself. That’s one way to atone for murdering your child, I guess.

With the location of the Black Fortress known, the adventurers set out to fight The Beast and free the princess. They harness flying Clydesdales (not making that up), and fly/ride to the Black Fortress. When they arrive, the highwaymen start dropping like flies, saying ‘It was worth it’ in so many ways, as does the Kindly Old Man. The Cyclops enters and sacrifices himself so the adventurers can enter the Black Fortress. Inside it looks like the place was designed by H.R. Giger, with an alien, organic look. The prince fights The Beast, but loses the Glaive and discovers that with the power of the princess behind him, he can defeat The Beast.

And they lived happily ever after…

Let’s face it, this isn’t an original movie. It’s pretty standard fantasy fare, but it did have some good visuals going for it. I also like the sci-fi touches, which set it apart from many movies of the time. They couldn't quite capture its scope. Unlike Conan (which I do enjoy), I didn’t find myself saying, “Come on, get on with it already!” I must admit, there are some faults with this movie. But, if you can let yourself enjoy a nice fantasy epic, you won’t be disappointed. It’s worth re-watching if you saw it as a kid, or watching for the first time if you've never seen it.

Final Thoughts: This movie was pretty damn good.

It was a GOOD movie.

Coming Soon: Saved!

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Rating (from metacritic.com): 64/100

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
After New York City receives a series of attacks from giant flying robots, a reporter teams up with a pilot in search of their origin, as well as the reason for the disappearances of famous scientists around the world.

Source: My personal collection

Review:

I love this movie. There, I said it. I saw this movie in theaters and I bought it on DVD. I wish there had been a sequel or something, because this is my kind of movie.

Then I made the mistake of reading the reviews. Most are 3-4 lines, mostly saying it sucked WITH NO EXPLANATION AS TO WHY. If you’re going to write a review, take some time. Dammit people, put some effort into your criticism. I do.

Why is this my kind of movie? It’s a Neo-Pulp movie, meaning it’s trying to recreate the feeling of Pulp works. And it did the job for me.

Let’s start with the plot and background. We have our characters: lady reporter Polly Perkins and Sky Captain, AKA Joe or Joseph, an evil doctor and robots. We know next to nothing about how these characters developed, starting media res as the movie does. Polly learns about a group of scientists that have been vanishing all over the world. Soon after meeting Dr. Vargas, New York City is attacked by giant robots, that begin to tear up generators beneath the streets. It’s during this attack that we get introduced to our title character: Sky Captain. He flies around his P-40, doing his best to destroy the robots without firing a shot. He then flies back to his secluded island base somewhere in upstate New York.

After talking with his friend and super-scientist inventor Dex, Sky Captain goes back to his office, only to be surprised by Polly. It turns out they used to be lovers, until she (maybe) sabotaged his plane, resulting in a prison sentence for Joe. They bicker, Polly finds out there have been robots running around for several years. They go find the next scientist who’s going to die/disappear and then get back to the airfield in time for the next attack.

This is where the movie starts to really show what it can do. You have snappy dialogue, strong visuals and decent special affects. showing characters dodging through city streets, weapons firing, is what the movie was intended to do. After a bit of time, Polly and Joe track the transmission to Nepal. How do they do this? I don’t know; who cares? This is what Pulp is all about. Over-the-top, kick-ass action and awesome (fake) science. Sadly, when the two arrive in Nepal, the movie starts to go down hill. For some reason, the evil doctor has human agents, who somehow end up being hired by Joe’s old friend. Okay…? Then, they try to kill everyone and get away with the things that Polly has been hiding from Joe for a while. After surviving Certain Death in typical Pulp fashion, they end up in Shangri-La, where they find one of the survivors of the Evil Doctor’s uranium mines and get the next lead in the hunt.

Which leads us… well, I don’t exactly know where. Somewhere in the middle of an ocean. I’d imagine it’s the Atlantic, what with an underwater city around the island. There we finally get to see Angelina Jolie’s character. She’s only on screen for 13 minutes, but she does a good job of showing just who Joe would step out on his girl with. She also gives us the main character’s real name. We’re almost to the end of the movie, and we discover that Sky Captain is really Joseph Sullivan. Oddly enough, by then it kinda fits him. Continuing the plot, we get to see more pulp science, with visual sonar, amphibious planes and flying air carriers – which I totally enjoyed, by the way. There are robots under water and a good fight scene before we finally arrive at the ‘Mysterious Uncharted Island.’ I swear, you could feel the capital letters when they arrived. There’s a bit of character development and some running around, where we get glimpses of the Evil Doctor’s island of monsters. Why is he creating monsters when he’s going to leave the earth and take two of every animal? Who cares? They end up inside, find out that not only is the plan to shoot an ark off into space, but that it’s going to destroy the world when it leaves. This is what pulp villains do. They go for the gold in Evil. The rocket is well done, with the egomaniacal touches that make this movie so enjoyable.

In the end, Sky Captain saves the day, and it turns out the Evil Doctor has been dead all along, his robots continuing to carry out his will long after he has passed away. He also seems to have changed his mind---too late to stop what he has put in motion.

Let’s talk about some things that weren’t so good about this movie. It was too far outside the current norm, which can be hard for some people to take. I liked it, but some people just don’t get that the point was to be over-the-top. It wasn’t trying to be quality, edgy, great or mainstream blockbuster. It wanted to capture a bygone era of entertainment history, which most people in my generation just haven’t experienced. It was imaginative but was also harking back to a lot of stuff that has been overdone.

I really tried to suspend my disbelief for this movie, and it wasn't too hard, but there were a few things I just couldn’t get past. For example, Sky Captain plows his plane into the ocean, knowing that his plane can move underwater. However, the airframe isn't designed to handle the stress of a direct impact on the water’s surface, as the robot bird-planes show us when they impact. Speaking of which, it clearly shows them crash into the water, but when we flash back to Sky Captain’s plane, there's no debris behind it. Small thing, mildly annoying. Then we have the whole amphibious plane thing and it does the same thing. Hitting the water at several hundred feet per second would be like hitting an asphalt street at those speeds. There would be carnage.

Major and minor flaws aside, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. If you haven’t seen it, give it a try. It was what The Phantom and The Shadow tried but failed to be. It was Pulp in look, and in style and it was satisfying Pulp.

Final Thoughts: It you don’t like old movies, you’ll hate this one. If you can’t appreciate what this movie was trying to do, I feel sorry for you.

It was a GOOD movie.

Coming Soon: Krull

And the winner is...

For the few of you who noticed, there was a poll at the bottom of the blog with a choice of three movies for a Halloween movie review. The winner, with all of the votes (a grand total of two. Two votes), is Horrors of War. My thanks to the pair of you who voted, and I'll be sure to curse your names while I subject myself to this terrible production.

As you may notice, there is no review this week. Due to some issues, I wasn't able to watch the movie I planned on reviewing. However, I will watch and review two movies next week.

Stay tuned.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Rating (from metacritic.com): 37/100

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
While still out to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation, Alice joins a group of survivors who want to relocate to the mysterious but supposedly unharmed safe haven known only as Arcadia.

Source: Netflix

Review:

So, we’re on to the 4th, and unfortunately not final, Resident Evil movie. We start some four years after the end of the world, without any real idea of when that happened. I assume it was sometime after the 2nd movie but before the 3rd, based on what we saw in those movies. We see a zombie outbreak in Tokyo, then the ending from the last movie is wrapped up---with a ton of Alice clones assaulting the Umbrella corporate headquarters (which for some reason is in Tokyo; there is a fun little reference to the original name of the game series, Biohazard.) Maybe my memory is faulty, but I got the impression that their HQ was in Europe somewhere. Anyway, the Alices kick ass, and get to Wesker, at which point we see the real Alice get her powers taken away. Yeah, because they really needed to do that. I’m sorry, but that has been the most under-played part of the series. We see her get these superpowers at the end of the 2nd movie, then they're mostly ignored during the 3rd, and we get only one scene with them at the start of the 4th. I agree with Alice, thank the man for getting rid of the powers you never really used. I’m willing to bet she gets re-exposed in the next movie. Oh, you didn’t hear? They’re making a 5th movie, and dear god, I hope it’s the last one, though I doubt it.

Moving on, after Alice gets in another helicopter crash (kind of running theme with the writer, who happened to have directed this one, too), she goes looking for the survivors she ditched to join her in a game of Revenge Society with Umbrella. She finds a very screwed up Claire, another character not wasn’t used effectively, and takes her along. The pair flies down the west coast of the US, looking for survivors. They enter Los Angeles to find it burning - for years and locate a group of survivors in a prison surrounded by the undead. Finally, characters using their heads in a zombie movie! The group in the prison is full of troupes, with all of them fulfilling their roles and dying for no reason. We are introduced to Chris, a character who should have been around for much longer in my opinion. The zombies learn how to burrow, and some learn to swim---even growing face squids. The survivors have to flee their prison when the ‘Axeman’ shows up and destroys the front gates, letting in the zombie hordes. There’s a bunch running around and some cool fights, with the best use of quarters in the post-apocalyptic world. The writer completely misses what would have been a totally awesome scene, with our survivors zipping through the ruins of LA, driving a STRYKER ATTACK VEHICLE! There are no words for the scene I made up while watching them crawl through some dirty hole in the ground. They finally get to Arcadia, which is some ship that’s been picking up survivors. Hey, another group using their heads to survive the end of the world!

Of course, nothing is what is seems and the ship is really a way for Umbrella to collect humans for experiments. Wait, what? Why do you need to keep experimenting on people? There’s no point. There are no governments to buy weapons, you already have a cure for the virus, and it’s a waste of resources. But, it 's a big evil corporation. Pay no attention to logic! Think only of the cool action scenes and the little scraps of homage we give you. Wait, where are you going? Don’t leave! Buy this movie. You know you really like it!

That is exactly how I feel about the series at this point. Meanwhile, there’s another big showdown between Alice and Wesker, where we find out he’s some kind of horrible mutant, the traitor gets his just desserts (again) and they out-smart the bad guy. Then, there’s the ‘Oh shit, Jill’s back! And they’re doing another one!’ moment at the end.

This movie just couldn’t keep me interested. I’m glad I didn’t go see it in theaters because I wouldn’t have liked paying $20 for the ‘experience’ of seeing it on the big screen. I wasn’t surprised to see that The Rule of Cool reigned supreme in this film, but it was way overdone at some points. There’s also Mila ‘I only use weapons in pairs’ Jovovich giving her usual one-note performance. Look at it, except in the first film she carries two of everything: 9mm pistols, stubby MP5s, kukris, katanas, and shotguns. I hadn’t noticed until the opening of the movie that she has two katanas on her back. Those are hand-and-a-half swords. Holding one in each hand is really hard to do and would be awkward as hell.

It was also annoying to see the Hard-Case Alice get weak for a moment, and the formerly weak Claire have to give her a short reminder. I think if the lines had been reversed it would have worked better.

The plot was thin, the action was lacking and the horror was telegraphed well in advance. Characters die and you just didn’t care. The writer didn’t want to deal with some stuff, so he just went ‘nope, not gonna do that’ and teased us with what might have been. They leave a character behind, flashing back to him for no obvious reason. Oh, and the bombs. I forgot about this. Early in the movie, they blow up a bomb in Tokyo, and it looks like it's imploding rather than exploding. It destroys a large amount of area, too. When they use the bomb again and it explodes, it doesn’t have nearly the same range. Sort of like the movie itself.

Final Thoughts: The movie could have done better, but I felt like it didn’t even try.

It was a BAD movie.

Coming Soon: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow