Having seen RESIDENT EVIL 2

[james_davis_nicoll]

I am compelled to ask



Why in god's name would someone think to hide from the Walking Dead in a graveyard?

And why in god's name do people split up in this films. "Sorry, but my paycheck only covers the next seventy eight seconds."

The Living Dead genre really needs a SCREAM treatment, a film in which the characters have seen zombie films and paid a little attention.

Comments

[j-shelbourne.livejournal.com]

Ooookay.

I saw the first Resident Evil movie with a sort of "what the fuck?" attitude. (Having read George Romero's screenplay--it's out on the Internet somewhere--I was expecting something actually based on the video game, rather than something that involved only a few trademarked items from the video game.)

Having seen RE2:A now, I can say, "Doublemint wtf?"

A couple of cool stunts, camera tricks stolen from 28 Days Later, a chance for Canadian viewers to rejoice as Toronto City Hall is reduced to slag...but it has no idea what its story is. It's not a horror film, because--and this is crucial--it's not scary. I didn't regret the loss of a single character. Superwoman had me bored--you know I'm bored when I'm going, "Hey, she's holding that accent fairly well." It was worse than trying to make sense of the first Tomb Raider movie.

The minor appeal of Sienna Guillory looking amazingly like Jill Valentine was not really sufficient.

(Which is odd, in one way: little touches like that enhance my viewing of things such as the Justice League cartoon, but not here. Possibly because they usually make an effort to have a story, and it's only half an hour, so less of my life is gone (as when they did the Hawk & Dove episode).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Having seen RE2:A now, I can say, "Doublemint wtf?"

A couple of cool stunts, camera tricks stolen from 28 Days Later, a chance for Canadian viewers to rejoice as Toronto City Hall is reduced to slag...but it has no idea what its story is. It's not a horror film, because--and this is crucial--it's not scary. I didn't regret the loss of a single character. Superwoman had me bored--you know I'm bored when I'm going, "Hey, she's holding that accent fairly well." It was worse than trying to make sense of the first Tomb Raider movie.

It's not a horror film. It's a video game film. You can always hit replay on a video game so there's no element of tension, no possibility of permanent loss.

I've proposed what I call "Less Virtual Than It Looks Reality" games (in which the dangers to the character in the game are translated into real danger to the player) to various companies but they all lacked my visionary nature. They call it "negligent homicide" but I call it "artistic vision."