Resident Evil: Retribution

Title: Resident Evil: Retribution

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Released: 2012

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Sienna Guillory, Shawn Roberts, Aryana Engineer, Oded Fehr, Colin Salmon, Johann Urb, Boris Kodjoe, Li Bingbing

Plot: Picking up directly after the end of “Resident Evil: Afterlife” Alice (Jovovich) now finds herself captured by the Umbrella Corperation and placed in an underwater facility which also doubles as a demonstration ground for the effects of the T-Virus. Now Alice must team up with the mysterious Ada Wong to escape the facility which is now under the control of a recently reactivated “Red Queen”.

Review: Its staggering to think at this point in the series that we are five films deep in the franchise which at this point has also gone on its own very unique path from the source material as we continue to follow the journey of Alice in her battle against the Umbrella Corporation and of course the zombie hordes created by the T-Virus. Still just when we thought the series had already gone way off the deep end Director Paul W. S. Anderson somehow manages to find a way to top it.

Seeing how the previous film ended on the fantastic cliffhanger of Alice on the deck of of the Umbrella Tanker Arcadia as she stared down a squadron of Umbrella Tiltrotors. Now half expecting the film to open with Alice being captured what Anderson gives us instead is actually something pretty special as we get to the events which transpired played out in reverse slow motion which honestly only serves to make it all the more impactful than if we’d seen it played out normally.

One of the strengths of the series has always been Jovovich’s performance as Alice a role she truly has made more and more her own with each film even designing Alice’s outfits through her own fashion line. Here though we get to see a new side to Alice as she finds herself waking up in a suburban dream life complete with husband and deaf daughter Becky (Engineer) only for dream to quickly turn into the same sort of zombie nightmare we saw at the start of Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake. Here in lies the kicker for this instalment as Alice finds herself in a facility made up of large scale remakes of various cities such as Tokyo and New York which originally had been designed as a way of selling the T-virus to various countries replicating the rival country at the facility. This of course really is just an excuse for Anderson to craft a series of large scale and flamboyant action sequences as the film itself feels like one long shoot out, especially with the plot moving at such a fast pace.

The action throughout is great to look and while this entry perhaps features more heroic gunplay than previous entries with the introduction of Ada Wong here played note perfect by Li Bingbing whose performance was surprisingly dubbed well by Sall Cahill but watching the film I couldn’t tell . Ada as a character though is finally a character able to stand toe to toe with Alice and to see them working together in the film really was a thrill. Afterall why have one kickass lady when you can have two.

Each of the settings are unique enough to stand out and provides a decent change from another round of post-apocalyptic wastelands or the sterile facilities of the umbrella corporation. True none of it is shot with seemingly the slightest concern for what is realistic or not but its really hard to complain when its so much fun to have scenes such as a high speed chase through a simulated Moscow or an army of zombie soldiers. These scenes only being added to by Anderson’s visual style which here once again works really well.

This facility setting for the film also means we get to see the return of several characters such as James (Salmon) and Rain (Rodriguez) who get to return to the series as clones. Rodriguez in perticular getting to play two versions of herself as we see her playing her Strike team persona from the first film sent to hunt Alice and Ada aswell as the suburban version who plays like the complete opposite as she acts openly shocked at the idea of using guns. Yes I could have done without seeing Colin Salmon again, but then I can pretty much do without seeing him in most things., Rodriguez meanwhile is enjoyable as always and getting to see the super powered version at the end was only an added treat.

For some reason Anderson here also chooses to saddle Alice with a Deaf daughter, who its explained early on is infact a clone from the suburban simulation created to play her daughter. Of course knowing this Alice still shows a mothers devotion to the child perhaps because Anderson couldn’t find a way to morally justify dumping the kid without turning her into a zombie kid. Maybe this was just another way of working his obsession with James Cameron’s “Aliens” into the film and creating his own version of Ripley and Newt. At the same time you could also see the different settings the group travel through as being a nod to “Westworld” which was also reportedly another source of inspiration for the film.

Ending on another tantalising cliffhanger with Alice having her superhuman abilities restored and the sight of humanity making its last stand from the grounds of the fortified White House. Say what you will about Anderson as a director he really knows how to make an audience crave that next instalment.

Resident Evil

Title: Resident Evil

Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Released: 2002

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes, Colin Salmon

Plot: When the T-Virus is released in a secret underground facility called “The Hive” an elite military unit is sent in only to find the staff have been turned into zombies while a mysterous woman suffering amnesia named Alice (Jovovich) might hold the key to their survival.

Review: Paul W. S. Anderson might be one of the most frustratingly diversive directors currently working today as throughout his careers he’s danced between directing interesting original pieces such as his ram raiding drama “Shopping” and “Event Horizon” while at the same time spending a large chunk of his career making video game adaptations as he proved you can make a decent video game adaptation with “Mortal Kombat” before setting his sights on the “Resident Evil” franchise which somehow he has managed to turn into a franchise of its own.

Watching the film back when it was originally released I genuinely could not have predicted that the series would last as long as it has, let alone how much of a horror icon Alice would become and while I might have tapped out originally after this first entry I felt it was long overdue that I actually revisit the series if only to discover what it is about these films which has enabled them to keep churning out new entries which have increasingly moved away from the source material and into a post-apocalyptic near future.

Opening to a mystery scientist stealing the T-virus before unleashing the virus in the lab sending the facility into lockdown as he makes his escape, the employees of the Hive meanwhile assuming that its a fire drill shuffle around the hallways only to soon find themselves being targeted by the facility security system known as “The Red Queen”. It’s a fun scene especially when it includes a misguided attempt to escape from an elevator leaving one employee minus their head. From here Anderson really doesn’t let up on the tension as we are introduced to Alice lying on the floor of her shower with no memory of who or where she is, while the fact that she suddenly has a group of gas mask clad commando’s swinging through the window really doesn’t help things either.

While the opening might be packed with genuine tension and atmosphere, things soon start to go downhill as Alice joins the commando’s as they set about infiltrating the Hive. Here the plotting goes the way of a traditional zombie horror as the group manage to unleash the recently zombified employees aswell as a number of other genetic experiments the company has been working on. Thankfully though Anderson mixes things up enough her to stop this being just another zombie thriller as we get a number of fantastic set sequences such as Alice facing off against a group of zombie dogs and the now legendary laser hallway sequence. At the same time Anderson doesn’t feel the need to anchor himself to the source material which saw him turning “Mortal Kombat” into an “Enter the Dragon” remake with added supernatural elements. Here it is very much the case again as he opts not to include any of the characters from the games and outside of the mention of the “Umbrella Corporation” Anderson keeps many of the references to the game much more subtle.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film though is how the film can be viewed for the numerous references to “Alice in Wonderland” that are worked into the film making it little coincidence that our heroine is called “Alice” let alone the fact that the security system is named “The Red Queen” creepily represented by a hologram of its creators daughter. The original script also saw the inclusion of “The White Queen” who would have been the main AI system at the Umbrella Headquarters monitoring the Hive and counting the Red Queens security systems while explaining how the commando’s are able to access the Hive. Even though this was removed from the final script there are still plenty of other refrences to be spotted such as the entrance to the Hive being through a mirror (Alice enters through the looking glass), the white rabbit the virus is shown being tested on aswell as the Red Queen decapitating one of the group. Unquestionably its a unique approach while one subtle enough to be overlooked until its pointed out and much like the amnesia plotline it strangely works even though when I first watched the film on its original release I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed that while it had hints of the games such as the mansion and the secret lab underneath the characters and plotting where completely different.

My other bug bear with the film is just how sterile it is as Anderson sets up a fun moment of gore or a zombie attack only to cut away at the last second leaving you feeling cheated, especially if you’ve come up watching the classic zombie movies of the 70’s and 80’s which on the surface it appears that Anderson is keen to homage here (not a running zombie in sight) though sadly not their gut munching visuals. Intrestingly the Zombie godfather George A. Romero was at one point attached to write and direct the film only to abandon the project after numerous classes with the studio during the pre-production process with his version sticking more closely to the games with Jill Valentine being the female lead instead of Alice and I can’t help but wonder if his version would have given the film its much needed dose of gore that is noticeably missing here.

Despite the lack of gore Anderson still manages to craft some memorable zombie attack scenes including the group trying to escape the hordes using overhead pipes while the zombie attack scenes are all suitably tense and chaotic even if they do feel ultimately hollow thanks to the lack of gore. That being said the film could be seen as an entry level zombie movie for those not quite up for the gore of Romero’s Zombie saga yet not wanting to hokey antics of “White Zombie” and “Plague of the Zombies”. Yes this is not a perfect film, especially with so much clunky dialogue floating around but as a gentle starting point for zombie movies you really could do a lot worse.

The cast are really a mixed back here with Milla Jovovich getting to flex her action-heroine chops here after previously kicking a whole lot of ass in “The Fifth Element” and while she might do anything as spectacular here she does own the character of Alice, though I don’t think anyone could have guessed from this first film what an iconic character she would become. Michelle Rodriguez is equally fun as her tough commando counter with her casting coming at her own request being a fan of the games she had asked her agent to keep an eye out for any attempts to adapt them. Colin Salmon meanwhile continues to make me wonder who is actually casting him much like Alan Cummings as despite getting the best death of the movie is pretty horrible throughout his brief appearance here.

While this is far from a perfect film I did enjoy it more this time around than I did watching in on its original release. Perhaps this was because I knew what to expect this time around or maybe seeing how it fits into the larger vision that Anderson has turned it into with each new film. Even on its own this is pretty disposable fun though if your looking for a good zombie movie your attentions are best placed elsewhere.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Title: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Director: John R. Leonetti
Released: 1997
Staring: Robin Shou, Talisa Soto, James Remar, Sandra Hess, Lynn “Red” Williams, Brian Thompson, Musetta Vander, Irina Pantaeva, Deron McBee, Marjean Holden, Litefoot, Chris Conrad

Plot: Picking up were the first movie left off, the Outworld leader Shao Kahn (Thompson) unhappy with the outcome of the previous tournament launches an invasion of earth, breaking the rules of the “Mortal Kombat” tournament. Now Liu Kang (Shou), Raiden (Remar), Jax (Williams), Sonya (Hess) and Kitana (Soto) must join forces once again to defeat Shao Kahn, before Earth realm merges permanently with the Outworld.



Review: Over the years I’ve been writing this blog I have covered on several occasions my love for the “Mortal Kombat” series, a series which at times has certainly tested the love of it’s fan base mainly with questionable sequels to the original video game trilogy, which honestly only now has come back to the same standard as the original games, while the live action adaptations have largely been more successful, though this film will forever be the painful exception by being a film that even the fan base struggle to like.

The original “Mortal Kombat” movie I openly admitted in my review is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, so you can no doubt imagine by excitement when I discovered that a sequel was originally being made. Sadly this film was not the worthy successor (an honour later bestowed to the Classic TV series Mortal Kombat Konquest) to the first film I hoped it would be even back then and upon revisiting it now, several years after that original viewing with a really open mind I still found myself really disliking this movie.

While the first film was based on the original game, this film is based on Mortal Kombat 2 & 3, with the focus here being largely on the storyline from the third game, not that you can really tell as the melding of the two worlds is essentially the only real plot link that the film shares, especially with it exchanging the cityscapes of the game for a generic desert setting which was surprising seeing how this film had a larger budget than the original film, though where this budget went is even more confusing as none of it seems to have been put onto the screen, with the effects frequently appearing amateurish and the sets having none of the atmospheric designs of the original film, with there being really only one real set in the form of Kahn’s castle while only other sets are just generally generic ruins such as the one used for the final showdown.

The plotline is almost non existent outside of the heroes traveling to the Shao Kahn’s castle on their own yet essentially identical paths, while Raiden whines to the elder gods about what Shao Kahn is doing and how it violates the rules of “Mortal Kombat”. Needless to say all the characters handily all converge in time for the big showdown, while along the way we get distractions such as Liu Kang learning to harness the power of “animality” something which appeared in MK3 as a new way of finishing off your opponent and following on from the groundbreaking “Fatalities”, which had been joined by the more random “Friendship” finishers and completely bonkers “Babality” two things which are yet to make it into one of these spin off’s, yet for some reason director Leonetti felt he could make work, though for something which has such importance put upon it, it ultimately comes to around two minutes of footage of a couple of bargain bin CGI dragons fighting each other during the showdown between Liu Kang and Shao Kahn, which is an awkward looking fight to begin with, so to have them mutate into dragons, only takes the audience further away from the fight rather than salvaging it, as could have been done with a more capable director.

Despite the popularity and success of the first film nearly all of the roles with the exception Liu Kang and Kitana were recast for this film, thanks largely due to scheduling issues with the original cast as both Bridgette Wilson (Sonya) and Christopher Lambert (Raiden) were attached to other films, much like Chris Cassamassa (Scorpion) who was doing stunt work for “Batman & Robin”. The only exception being Linden Ashby, who turned down the opportunity to reprise his memorable performance as Johnny Cage, after he read the script, which is hard to blame him for especially if was the same as the film seen here. Still what is more surprising is that all the actors being brought in were more Z list than the majority of the original actors.

The main problem the film suffers from is the same as “Street Fighter” by misguidedly trying to please the fan base, by cramming in as many of their favorite characters as possible, but then suddenly finding that it has nothing for them to do, while no doubt further ticking off the Johnny Cage fan’s by killing him off in the first ten minutes. The original film based itself on the original game which arguably had a small roster of characters to feature which made it easier, but by drawing inspiration from MK2 & 3 it really tries to bite off more than it can chew by trying to feature so many characters, so not only do we have a lot of characters not doing much apart from standing around and generally bragging about their abilities, which rarely get showcased something especially true with the character of Sheeva, who was originally supposed to fight Raiden and Liu Kang at the same time, but due to complexities of bringing her character to the screen with the extensive use of prosthetic's and CGI, the scene was replaced with her almost comical death scene. Even worse we also get characters such as Melina suddenly appearing with no introduction and killed off with even less notice. As a result the film could have certainly benefited from just taking the more popular characters and concentrated on doing them well, after all who really cares about seeing characters like Nightwolf and Sindel?? Even more randomly Sub Zero and Scorpion both return, even though they both died in the first film and while their appearance is certainly still welcome (unlike those stupid robots) and they have a decent fight scene, their reapperence rests largely on your acceptance that Sub Zero is actually the brother of the original Sub Zero, a idea only made the less laughable by his sudden ability to fly, while Scorpion’s reappearance is left for the audience to figure out as no explanation is certainly given here.

The sole saving grace of this whole non-event is with the fight scenes, which although they don’t come close to those seen in the original film, we do get a few half decent fight scenes, including a titillating mud pit showdown between Sonya and Melina, which despite Sonya being completely covered in mud by the end of the fight, it has mysteriously disappeared by the next scene as we see what would seem to be a freshly showered Sonya. Still Hess does well in portraying the character while even cheekily getting to pull off Sonya’s “Kiss of Death” fatality. The fight scenes however are heavily affected by the martial arts abilities of the actors who happen to be playing those characters, so ironically as a result of this characters such as Sub-zero and Scorpion who are played mainly by fight trained stuntmen have great fight scenes, while Robin Shou doesn’t get the same showcase for his abilities as he did before largely thanks to Brian Thompson having seemingly zero martial arts ability, despite his resume listing that he has a black belt in Hapkido, though his characters insistence on constantly doing forward flips is almost comical.

“Mortal Kombat : Annihilation” is not just a flawed film, it’s a film lacking any kind of direction and one which makes no attempt to take advantage of the world already established in the first film, while questionable use of budget makes it hard to see what they spent the money on, especially when the acting and script are so awful, while the sole thing which stops this from being sent straight to Video Game Movie hell, along with the likes of “Double Dragon” and “King of the Fighters” are the few good fight scenes we get, which while they ultimately might not cover for the mountain of issues this film has, at least proving enough of a distraction to keep your attention to the end credits. Sadly the planned follow up to this film, which allegedly would not only bring back the original cast, but also make up for cover for the damage caused to the franchise by this film would be closed down, when sets were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

While other attempts to reboot the franchise would follow in this films wake, we still await another movie, with the fate of the series would now seemingly rest in the hands of Kevin Tancharoen, who has so far proven to the unlikely saviour since releasing his test film “Mortal Kombat: Rebirth” which gave the series a real life edge, which lead to the web series “Mortal Kombat: Legacy” whose huge success has now lead to him being given the gig of reviving the film franchise in what is expected to be a much needed reboot, much like the recent one which the games themselves were given, though details are still minimal we can only hope that it takes this film as an example of what not to do with the franchise.

Mortal Kombat

Title: Mortal Kombat
Director: Paul Anderson
Released: 1995
Staring: Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Bridgette Wilson, Christopher Lambert, Talisa Soto, Trevor Goddard, Chris Casamassa,

Plot: Once every generation, there is an interdimensional martial arts tournament held, known simply as Mortal Kombat and designed to limit invasions between the realms. Having won the last nine tournaments, the realm of Outworld and now only need to win one more tournament to allow it’s Emperor Shao Kahn to invade and conquer Earth Realm. Now Shaolin warrior Liu Kang (Shou) seeking revenge against the tournament host Shang Tsung (Tagawa) for the death of his brother, joins the other fighters picked by Raiden (Lambert) The God of Thunder to face against Shao Kahn and the warriors of Outworld in a last bid attempt to save Earth.






Review: Regular readers of the blog will probably know already of my love for the “Mortal Kombat” series and it seemed about time that I actually reviewed the film I consider to be my ultimate guilty pleasure.

Video Game adaptations have in the past (with usually good reason) been frequently greeted with much critical distain and despite Uwe Boll having spent the majority of his career making a vast number of the horrible adaptations there have been to date, which only makes this all the more special let alone the fact that it broke the chain of bad video game adaptations when it was released after the legendry flops “Super Mario Bros.” (1993) and “Street Fighter” (1994) the later of which Jean Claude Van Damme ironically choose to do instead of this film, which unlike those two is awesome! Were this film succeeds were the others failed, is by Director Anderson taking the key ideas from the game and giving them his own twist in almost the same way that was attempted with “Mortal Kombat: Rebirth” only Anderson is instead applying those same ideas to a traditional Kung Fu format, while keeping the more fantastical elements to a minimum while still finding a way to make such trademark elements such as the fantastical fighting styles of the outworld fighters like Scorpion and Sub Zero

The other strength here is by limiting the characters to those from the first game, while other video game tie in’s got bogged down with trying to work in everyone’s favourite characters, something especially memorable from the mess which “Street Fighter” became by trying to include every single character and while “Mortal Kombat” throws in several original creations such as Art Lean (Edwards), while the tournament setting allows for these characters to be introduced and serve their purpose before being handily disposed of. Infact the format perhaps works alittle too well seeing how after the first quarter when the Trio of Liu Kang, Movie star Johnny Cage (Ashby) and Sonya Blade (Wilson) arrive on the island, it is essentially fighting from that moment on with little or no break between each sequence, but this what we as fans want to see, rather than clumsy attempts to add depths to what are at their best, as much as we want to deny it are little more than paper thin caricatures, which is fine for the purpose they serve in the video game world and it’s because of this same reason that other attempts to adapt games frequently fail, as directors try to either stick too close to the source material or take it too far from this material so that it alienates even the most hardcore of the fanbase. Anderson would later take his skill of adaptation to the “Resident Evil” franchise eventually taking it in a completly new direction than the games, forming a franchise which currently shows no signs of slowing down, as seen by the success of the recent forth entry in the series “Resident Evil: Apocalypse”, despite the film not exactly bringing much to the Zombie genre they frequently emulate, other than a series of entry level zombie movies, before their fans move onto the more legendry films of George Romero and in way the same thing could be said for “Mortal Kombat” which is almost like an entry level movie for the Kung Fu genre, aswell as a thinly veiled adaptation of “Enter the Dragon” only with the added bonuses of multi armed mutants and soul stealing sorcerers.

The action scenes are all handled well with even the non martial art trained amongst the cast, such as Ashby and Wilson both coming across as convincing martial artists, with the majority of them being handled by Shou, who surprisingly would fall off the radar after this film, which only makes it more of a shame he wasn’t seen in similar roles, with his star pretty much dropping after this films release. All the fighters show off their trademark moves with some such as Scorpions spear and Johnny Cage’s package punch are all accounted for, while Goro is pretty much a perfect adaptation from his video game persona and only benefits further from being an animatronics creation, especially when you look at the seriously dated CGI used to create Reptile, which I remember being alot more impressive the first time I saw this film, but then the same could also be said for “The Lawnmower Man” (1992). Still unlike the CGI the techno heavy soundtrack still kicks ass, with the opening theme perfectly setting the tone for the fun which follows.

The big surprise here is the lack of gore, especially seeing how the Mortal Kombat series are some of the most violent fighting games ever made and while I wasn’t expecting to see Sub Zero performing his fatality of tearing off an opponents head and spinal cord, it is still a tricky game to adapt faithfully enough to stay in tune with what fans have come to expect from the series. Still it does manage to throw in a few surprises in this stake, much like the surprise appearance of the games memorable “Pit” stage and the gory demise of Reptile but its still all fun times even without the gory extremes of the game, but then Anderson it’s also worth remembering is the same director who gave us a gore free zombie movie (See: Resident Evil).

As much as other critics have blasted this flick in the past, frequently trying to lump it in with Street Fighter and while admittedly the humour can seem alitle forced in places and it’s sequel “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” is utter garbage, this still remains a great film. Even now as I try to look at it through a more critical viewpoint, rather than the rose tinted glasses of childhood nostalgia and it did also spawn “Mortal Kombat: Conquest” a great TV show which is still in need of a decent DVD release and while the intregring “Mortal Kombat: Rebirth” has now sadly drifted away from its intriguing “Dark Knight” style reimagining into more familiar territory after being turned into "Mortal Kombat: Legacy", proving once more that studio exec’s really don’t know shit.