Law & Order
TV Show
Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and...
David McK (3227 KP) rated Monster Hunter (2020) in Movies
Apr 10, 2023
This being, at the time of writing, their latest.
Based on the video game series by Capcom (yes, the same people who did the Resident Evil games) which - I have to admit - I've never actually played, it's very easy to spot the influences of said game on the film, which (in the film) sees Jovovich's US Ranger Lt Artemis and her men transported to an alien environment infested by, you guessed it!, various icky monsters. It's also extremely easy to spot the influences of other, far far better, 'creature features': think Starship Troopers, Tremors or even Aliens to name but three!
Perhaps, as a non-player of the game, I'm just not the target audience ...?
Peaky Blinders - Season 2
TV Season Watch
Britain is a mixture of despair and hedonism in 1919 in the aftermath of the Great War. Returning...
As Good as it Gets: The Story of St Helens' Grand Slam Class of 2006
Book
In 2006 St Helens rugby league club won every single team and individual honour that the sport...
Lights, Camera, Game Over!: How Video Game Movies Get Made
Book
Since 1993, Hollywood has been rendering popular video games on the silver screen, mainly to...
Justin Long recommended Boogie Nights (1997) in Movies (curated)
In Search of Tomorrow (2021)
Movie
In Search of Tomorrow is an upcoming documentary film, written and directed by David A. Weiner. It...
Roland Hayes: The Legacy of an American Tenor
Christopher Antonio Brooks, Robert Sims, Simon Estes and George Shirley
Book
Performing in a country rife with racism and segregation, the tenor Roland Hayes was the first...
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Resident Evil (2002) in Movies
Oct 28, 2020
...it's a terrible film, it's a shitty horror, and Anderson should just keep away from beloved franchises forever. I actually actively hate most of his films (have I mentioned this before?).
The big gaping issue with Resident Evil is it's characters and screenplay. The characters are a collection of edgy shitbags who spout one liners every two seconds and are just ripped straight from the "cliché action bastard handbook". It's difficult to care about any of them. I understand that Alice (Milla Jovovich) goes on to lead the entire franchise, but in the first entry, she hardly does or says anything, and as such, the audience doesn't get much of a chance to bond with her before the credits roll.
The script is just eye rollingly cringey. Every single line is either a "witty" quip, or lazy exposition and it becomes tiresome very quickly.
Some of the effects are ok - the zombie dogs look pretty gnarly, but The Licker (one of the only concrete connections to the game series) is brought to life with some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. To say it's aged badly would be an understatement, as I remember it looking dodgy AF back in 2002 when I was a humble 14 year old. Other than that, the whole film has that awful early 2000s aesthetic (The Matrix truly has a lot to answer for) and the inclusion of obnoxious breakbeat music cues that everyone was obsessed with at the time is the cherry on the mouldy cake. Ugh.
It's not all terrible... There are a couple of memorable set pieces, and the film manages to be somewhat entertaining here and there, but overall, Resident Evil is another garbage pile video game adaption, and the fact that George Romero wrote an unused screenplay that was much closer to the first game (and was poised to direct!) just rubs salt in this horrible festering wound left behind by Paul WS Anderson's Resident Evil. Hate it.
War and Peace
Book
This is the official tie-in edition to the BBC adaptation of War and Peace with an exclusive...