But Lantis, this is the GD forum... U R DOIN' IT RONG!

No... no I'm not. You'd be right if I were talking about the awesome Resident Evil title released on Gamecube, PS2, and Wii. But no. I'm talking about Resident Evil 4... the movie.



Innitial thoughts:


After thinking on it for a few days:

Where to begin? Well, first off... I'm a rather big fan of the game series (and the horror genre in general). I think out of the horror genre that Resident Evil is the absolute best. So of course I was excited that there'd be a movie. But like all game-to-movie films, I didn't keep my bar set to high. Well, the movie came out and I watched it. And for the longest time I was convencing myself that it was a fairly good game-to-movie adaptation of the game. But honestly, no. No it isn't. If considered cannon, it raises more questions and answers none (unless knowing Nemesis' identity was oh so important... which it isn't).

So here I'm going to explain why this movie is nothing short of a back-handed slap across the face to all who enjoy the video game series. But before that, I wanted to show you the movies main selling poits:

At 0:48 they mention how the movie was recorded with the same camera that James Cameron had used. What the f*ck does this matter?! How on earth does this have any relivance to the quality of the film? I could record a dog taking a sh*t on the sidewalk with it, and it wouldn't be any better to watch.

At 0:57 and 1:15 the trailer flashes across the screen how awesome it is because it's in THREEEEEEEEE DEEEEEEEE!!! This should never have become a selling point for a movie. Again, I could make said dog taking a duce in 3D and it's not going to make it any better.

Now on to the fun stuff that is actually related to the gaming series:

In the movies it's been about Umbrella and the T-virus. And it focuses on Alice as she finds out who she is (which ends up being whatever nemeisis is... only stronger. Whoopty doo.) and she pretty much assumes the roll as what all the other gaming cast do... which is just try to stop those responsible for the biological warfare. Anyways, the game's plot is very very deep and spans quite a number of games. And is, to this day, one of the best stories told by video games. So how do you cram that into 2 hours? You don't. In fact, not only did fail at this... they crammed in extra side story crap on top of that to MAKE SURE that it ruins any chances of having any redeeming qualities towards the games. And if that wasn't bad enough, check this out:

At 1:17 you can see a Ganato. Which is, if you are familiar with Resident Evil 4, the enemies you fight. The thing is, they are NOT created with the T-virus... but Las Plagas. A completely different virus created by a completely different organization than Umbrella. But it get's better...

At 1:14 and 1:21 you see an Execusioner from Resident Evil 5! This is yet ANOTHER virus (Ouroboros) crafted in Africa... again, not created by Umbrella.

How on earth are you going to take all this information from several different games (having not only the T-virus, but las Plagus, AND Ouroboros)... as well as adding your own crappy story elements on top of that and CRAM IT ALL INTO 2 hours?!

You can't.





Oh and at 1:08 Wesker appears... dispite the fact that there's Ouroboros present in the movie relating to RE5, in which Wesker dies. Have fun explaining that, douchebags.

Their answer to all the different viruses being present is...

*Albert Wesker suddenly appears and throws his sunglasses in slow motion and kills myoky*

... Just because this was the same guy who did The Titanic?



But, yeah, I'd say the beerslamming of plot elements from nearly all of the essential RE video games and completely movie-original stuff all into the same film is what makes RE as a movie series so terrible. It made absolutely no sense to model Apocalypse somewhat after RE3:Nemesis when the first film had already deviated so much from the game series. I guess that last shot of the city in ruins and Alice grabbing a gun from the RE police car in the first film was supposed to bring in avid RE game fans like myself and Lantis back to the theatre for the second movie, as in, "OMG! Apocalypse will be just like the third game, with Jill, Carlos, Nemesis, and everything!" Screw that.

I'll admit, the first film wasn't that terrible. I'd give it a 4.5 on a scale of 1 - 10, which isn't that bad. It's just that it was such a huge disappointment when compared to the games.

Apocalypse was borderline retarded. It was pretty much a jumbled mess of over-the-top action sequences and vomit-inducing sights of topless girl zombies, overlaid with the simple (and not in the good way) storyline of Alice and her idiot friends (c'mon, LJ?) trying to escape the city when things went haywire with the undead, all the while dodging the wiles of some jerk Umbrella scientist. And speaking of that, the ending to Apocalypse was completely unnecessary, ... not to mention lame ... and just made me want to wail blood-drenched tears of anguish knowing that they were clearly setting up for YET ANOTHER MOVIE. The only two good things about that movie that immediately come to mind was that Nemesis was surprisingly well-made and the girl who played Jill actually made that tube-top/mini-skirt combo work when she wore it ... unlike in the game Nemesis. But, congratulations, Sienna Guillory; apparently the two highlights of your career as an actress are having had a major role in this craptastic movie I have just ranted over ... and your role as Arya in the sad, sad movie adaptation that is Eragon. Hold your head high, my dear.

Therefore, since I mentioned that Apocalypse was stupid, borderlining retarded, I could only imagine that Extinction had crossed that border, so I did not bother this time. Logic only leads me to conclude that any sort of 4th installment will extend well into the endless desert that is "abysmal". It's going to take an entire pepperoni pizza and a scantily-clad neko girl serving it in order to convince me to drag myself that far into the dregs of American films by watching either Extinction or Afterlife

... Oh, yeah, and the 3-D thing. Choke on my ****, Hollywood.

Referring to Avatar, actually. Specifically, it's a reference to the recording style more than the director.

And has a lot more relevance than Lantis let out.

well, its a movie with less time available to dish out all the info that is in the games. I am fine with it being altered so that Umbrella is behind all of it or even if just one other company is involved. Thinking of the films so far, and ignoring the games, if they all the sudden have more companies and more viruses, I would be confused and upset. It doesn't make any sense from the film's side to have more companies manufacturing more viruses after the most recent RE movie. I don't see how or why anyone could find the resources in that apocalypse, or the reason too when the previous virus already took such a hold on the world.So, if you ignore the games long enough to remember this is a 90min movie, it makes more sense that ALL of it came from a single company.

Sure the RE game fans are gonna complain. There would be no perfect transition as this is an entirely different medium and most of the people that are going to see this movie have likely never even played the games. My mother, aunts and uncles, and even grandparents (obviously never played the games) liked the RE movies and would be very interested in seeing the new one. Hell, I stopped after RE4 and I am looking forward to this movie. I'm not expecting some epic storytelling. I am, however, expecting a fun movie experience with some cool zombie killing and some matrix style fight scenes.

The icing on the cake is that it comes out on my birthday.

Yeah, happy birthday, insulta. >_>

@ Stythe - But isn't the recording style based on what the director wants? And besides, is Cameron's used 3-D enabled recorder better than a new one all together?

@ Insult - Yeah, that's a big 'if'. Ignoring the origins of anything you are trying to enjoy just doesn't settle well with me.

Normally, yes, but in this case the camera and all the tools associated with it were built to suit NEEDS rather than wants. They were created with a very specific and targeted use.

The director associated with R-E4 probably isn't renowned enough to get a budget that would also allow for an entirely new camera system better than Cameron's, which is currently the best on the market, to be made from the ground up.

Riding on "the camera used by James Cameron", then, says two very important things:

1) limited budget
2) effects similar to those seen in Avatar

.. and has nothing to do with trying to bring in views by bringing up Cameron. If anything, mentioning Cameron was an attempt to avoid going through the licensing nightmare that is simply saying " in Avatar" outright instead of "by Cameron".

That may be rather true... but it still kind of rubs me as a very poor bullet in a sales pitch for the film. Hell, if given the option (assuming I was even going to see this pile) I probably would opt for 2D anyways.

Extinction was the only movie that was bearable to watch in this series.
This one seems like it will be a mess. I believe the fans that love crazy-action-matrix scenes will probably enjoy this...even if those action scenes are done terribly. I expect nothing great from this movie, just like Clash of the Titans.

I actually find it kind of laughable how bad they are milking the 3D aspect anyways. About three or four times you saw someone throwing something directely at the screen, like OMG LOOK THIS WILL BE SO AWESOME IN THREEEE DEEE! *chucks glasses at screen* *chunks ninja throwing stars at screen* *chunks swords at screen*