REVIEW: Resident Evil: Retribution

Hello once again Internet, we're about to dive head first into another review for the aforementioned films. Please keep you eyes pointed directly at the screen and prepare to soak up lots of ill informed opinions regarding the film. So, let's get to it shall we, here is the review for...

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION

Alice, the long suffering clone warrior of Umbrella Corporation, is thrown back into battle with the hordes of zombies created by Umbrella. Captured by the corporation, she is then freed by an unlikely friend, who informs her of a strike team coming to help her. As she makes her way to rendezvous with the strike team, she finds help in the form of rogue Umbrella agent Ada Wong, who helps her to combat the waves of zombies and nasty creatures chasing them. It's now up to them to escape before the facility explodes and buries them all forever.

OK so I had a hard time writing that synopsis. I'm not usually that bad at recalling a films plot or the intricate details that outline the reasons why I did or didn't like the film. But with this movie, the 5th installment of the video game based franchise, I seriously had to search the very depths of my (admittedly small) brain before I found any memory of this film. This should give you a tiny indication of how this review is going to go.

This film has managed to achieve something I never thought was possible after watching any of the Twilight movies, or Disaster Movie. This film has managed to achieve an entirely new level of crap! I had already realized that this franchise was taking ideas from the rapidly expanding series of video games, the tentacle mouthed zombies (it's as weird as it sounds), the axe-wielding giant and indeed the brilliantly evil Wesker. However, what I didn't realize was that Paul Anderson (the director of all things silly) had completely run out of ideas, even when consulting the games, and had just decided to make a "greatest hits" movie consisting of practically nothing original. As the film went on, my jaw was gradually pulled towards the floor in sheer astonishment that I was watching possibly the most unoriginal film I've seen in, well, ever! From the enemies to the sets, right down to some of the characters, the amount of material scraped together from the previous films is staggering, bordering on impressive.

The plot is a rehash of the first film, underground base that Alice needs to escape from. The enemies consist of zombies (who can now run, OMG!), a fully mutated creature from the first film, plus the aforementioned axe wielding giants, among other, more human, gun-toting enemies. True, there are some new characters introduced, Ada Wong and Leon Kennedy make brief appearances throughout the film, but they're masked by the constant repetition on show, leaving them shallow, 1 dimensional and utterly boring, purely existing as a way to tie the film back to the video game franchise. Nothing changes about Alice as well, and the way in which she is freed from the facility is very confusing. Oh sod it I may as well tell you. Wesker sets her free and is now apparently a good guy. I know, how the hell did that happen? He was the big bad evil in the last installment and now he's had a HUGE change of heart. HOW? Ugh, moving on...

This film is making me incredibly angry, more so than any other film has done in a long time (until I inevitably see the last Twilight film), and it's all because of the stunning lengths this film has gone to to be the most unoriginal movie ever made. True, there are glimmers of new threats, zombies with guns being the highlight of the new ideas the director's grabbed frantically at, but it's really not enough to save this awful re-run of sets, characters, creatures, plot devices and dull, lifeless CGI from scraping the ground where the barrel used to be. This is the new standard for which truly awful films are made.

Until the next Twilight.

Score: 0.5/10

Well that's that review out of the way. I say that, I really loved doing that one, because it is somehow more satisfying to review a bad film than a brilliant one. It shouldn't work like that, but somehow it does. And by the way, for whoever is reading my articles, THANK YOU! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them and I would urge you to write comments on any of the things I've posted. I would love to hear from all of you reading these mindless reviews, suggesting things for me to watch or commenting on the films I've reviewed. Come on, get involved guys!

Until next time internet!

REVIEW: The Expendables 2

Ok so the schedule didn't exactly work as planned. But with everything else that's going on at the moment it turns out that I can't keep such a hectic schedule, so this has to fall to the back burner. In any case, I'm going to write reviews and Top 5's as and when I get the chance. Yes the posts will be sporadic but they'll still be winging their way to your computer screens!

This article will start with one of the more memorable films I've seen in the last few weeks. Memorable for all sorts of reasons, this is...

THE EXPENDABLES 2

Years after the events of the first movie, Stallone and his macho men (who really cares about character names in a film like this?) are hired by Bruce Willis to track down blueprints to an old Russian mine that was thought never to have existed. On completing the mission, they are ambushed by the brutal Jean-Claude Van Damme, who steals the plans and kills one of their team. Now out for revenge, Stallone enlists the help of Willis, the deadly Nan Yu and even the legendary Schwarzenegger, to track Van Damme down and stop him selling dangerous cargo to the wrong people.

Now whilst a constant stream of HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA doesn't make for good review material, it does actually describe how I felt viewing this film. However, I shall try and describe this film in other means. If you have seen the first one then you will have already geared yourself up for more stupidly over the top action sequences peppered with cheesy and cliched one liners. There are tons of explosions, gunfights, cheesy lines and decent fight scenes thrown into the 90 minutes of macho madness we are dealt with, but my initial impressions after finishing this film, was that this movie that set out to be the ultimate portrayal of bad-ass action heroes ever made, had missed a few tricks.

Firstly, we have the introduction of a kick-ass kung-fu heroin in this film. Why you ask? Because despite being better in 5 minutes of this installment than in the entirety of the first one, Jet Li dives out of the film the first chance he gets and doesn't come back. It's confusing yes, but if you're going to replace Li with a kick-ass female counterpart, then Nan Yu (however awesome she is in this film) wouldn't have been my first choice. The obvious choice for the role would have been the legendary Michelle Yeoh, who's produced some stunning martial arts films throughout the years and has made the transition to Hollywood with great success. Alternatively, you have the Taiwanese death dealer JeeJa Yanin, who's debut in Chocolate (made by the Ong Bak team) should have made her another big contender. But I don't hold anything against Nan Yu as when she does get the opportunity to beat up the bad guys, she does so with brutal force and exhilarating creativity.

The second thing the film makers missed was the failure to include the B-movie legend Steven Segal in all the chaos! This is even more surprising when you consider that another B-movie legend, Mr. Van Damme plays the main bad guy throughout the film. How hard could that have been to write into the film? Instead of a pretty good fight between Stallone and Van Damme at the end, you could have a potentially earth-shattering battle between these two giants! Well, it may not be earth shattering, b hey, you know it would fit right into this film and give it a well deserved boost. Sadly though, there is no Steven Segal, so the film has to do without and quite frankly, it does pretty well without him.

The addition of a few new faces into the mix definitely helps move the film along. Along with the regulars, such as Stallone, Statham, Lundgren and Willis, we're joined by legends such as Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and best of all, Chuck Norris. Yes you read that right. Chuck FREAKING Norris! He's not in it for a lot and apparently, he's the reason why this film is only a 15 (though I had heard he wanted it to be a 12 or maybe even a PG originally, because he doesn't act in films with lots of swearing or something along those lines), but when he is in it, he does everything you'd expect him to, except roundhouse kicking people in the face. Sadly there's none of that.

Ok, so we've talked about the things they've missed and the people that they've added to make the film even more kick-ass than is legally acceptable, but what about the actual film? How does that shape up to modern action films that are released today? Well, it's actually not that bad. The action is fairly cliched yes, but it handles it with such gusto and pride in what it's doing that you can't really help but admire it's bravery. There are few films nowadays that are so senseless and pointless with their film making that they often get pushed to the sidelines, but The Expendables 2 is a film that knows it's being stupid, macho, pointless and insanely ridiculous all at the same time, and gives the audiences exactly what they expect. The action scenes are completely bonkers, the fights are brutal and nicely choreographed, the acting is bad and hilarious in equal measures, and the plot is completely unnecessary for a film such as this. All these things combine to give the audience something they haven't experienced in a long time, an explosive ride of sheer joy, for them to relive the times when action films were a  nonsensical roller-coaster of bullets, explosions and not-so-witty jokes. Actions movies are rarely as entertaining as this. Well done guys! Well done!

Score: 8.5/10

Thanks for tuning in and reading this review! Trust me there are a lot more to come, but with Christmas just around the corner, they may be a long time in the making. Until next time interwebbers!