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Resident Evil (2021)
Resident Evil (2021)
2021 | Action, Horror, Mystery
8
6.0 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Story (1 more)
Nostalgic
Casting (1 more)
Character Traits
A fun film, but not without obvious flaws.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a great film. It attempts to combine key elements from the first 3 Resident Evil games into one movie, which kind of works, and kind of doesn't at the same time. Expect a lot of familiar moments and memorable key moments from the story of Raccoon City, but also don't get too excited because a lot of key moments and characters are missing entirely.

The film should have been two films really, the first covering the Mansion Incident, and the second covering the outbreak in Raccoon City.

The characters, while being most of the best known characters from the original game, are present yet at the same time not quite right. The casting, while not terrible, did make some mistakes, mostly in Tom Hopper's portrayal of Wesker, he just seems far too young for the role. But that isn't the only issue. The character's personalities are not as you remember them.

Chris comes across as very arrogant and annoying, Jill comes across as quite sassy, and poor Leon, the rookie cop seems to be a bumbling fool there for comic relief.

The best written and acted character by a long way is Claire, who comes across as the little rebel we know and love.

All in all, definitely worth a watch, and I will definitely watch it again. But if you are a huge Resident Evil nerd such as myself, it will certainly have it's moments for you, but don't go in expecting to see the entire story of Raccoon City unfold before your eyes.

Also, don't forget to keep watching the credits...
  
Thirteen Minutes (2021)
Thirteen Minutes (2021)
2021 | Action, Drama, Thriller
2
2.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
A new disaster film, cue excitement. Even a low budget disaster film can be good…

Life is disrupted when a storm turns its eye on a small town. Residents are tested, and they must put their differences aside to help each other make it through safely.

... that thing I said above about even low budget disaster films being good? Yeah, I don’t know how much this cost (I’m assuming not a lot), but it was not good.

This could have been a great short that ran 13 minutes, instead, it’s 1 hour and 48 minutes long. Those extra 95 minutes are made of bloated storylines, and while they overlap, none of them really have any weight. Removing a couple could easily have allowed the others more time to develop and actually let the viewer become more invested.

Out of the cast I can’t really call out anyone. There are faces you’ll recognise from other things, and they’re generally solid actors, but in this... there wasn't really a lot for them to work with.

There are many moments that defy sensible behaviour, as you'd expect from a disaster film. Only one amused me, while the others were mainly annoying.

You either need to take yourself seriously, or embrace the inevitable ridiculousness behind the idea. If this had leaned hard into the ridiculousness it could have been great. 13 Minutes disappointed on so many levels that adding truly terrible effects may actually have helped! I won’t need to watch this again, a disaster film that barely has a disaster in it was not what I signed up for.

[Side note: Initially I gave this 2 out of 5 stars. I have since retracted a star for this film's sheer audacity.]

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2022/02/13-minutes-movie-review.html