By now it was official and expected to get a new Resident Evil film sequel every 3 years, and in like clockwork in 2010 arrived Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth one, which also brought back to directing Paul W.S. Anderson, whom passed around the director duties after the first one, but was always writing the scripts, and as we will see, he would stick around for the rest of the film series as director & writer of his wife fanfic adventures in this Resident Evil canon.
And since we passed the third entry already, i guess they felt necessary to also go the 3D route, as the entire movie was shot this way, for obvious gimmicky (and lucrative) reasons, with the obvious parts meant for 3D as easy to notice in 2D as usual.
We immediatly continue from where Extinction left off, with multiple Alice clones attacking the Tokyo Umbrella hideout as promised, wielding kunai, double uzi, double katanas, and their psionic power, so yeah, Anderson it’s so obviosly and strongly back at the wheel, for better or worse, and it’s definitely not in the mood for hotdogging, so we jump straight into the bombastic action at the beginning, we’ll do the exposition and new and returning characters later.
Its 2002. The latest mainline Resident Evil games are RE Zero and Code Veronica (plus Gun Survivor 2 released the previous year), and the remake of the first RE game was coming a week later, but something else related debuts, and it’s the first feature lenght, live action film adaptation of the franchise, produced by Constantin Films via Sony’s Screen Gems label, with direction and script by Paul W.S. Anderson, previously known for the 1995 live action Mortal Kombat movie, and cult sci fi horror film Event Horizon.
So he already dabbled in the early wave of videogames films for the big screen, and fittingly enough the Resident Evil live action film would be his legacy, for the most part anyway, enough that eventually Capcom would collaborate with him again to make another film based on one of their IP, in this case one that started as a niche title but launched the popularity of “hunting games” and eventually became one of their biggest franchises, Monster Hunter.
But back to the zombies with what is now the first of the Resident Evil live action film series, and not even the only RE film series, as we looked upon the CG animated one some years ago.
In terms of what “Resident Evil 2002” it plucks from the games…. let’s consider the first one for reference, and it clearly a case where people from Capcom had a list of things that had to be in the movie to make it Resident Evil”, but never specified how and why these things should exist in this new continuity, because Paul W.S. Anderson clearly had little interest in making faithful adaptations of the games’ plot, and did its own thing, playing fairly loose with the videogame canon, which was reviled as it’s often now but was less lamented upon, at least compared to modern standards of backlash, “outrage” and rampant reactions from the internets.
Lil G is back after 15 years of official silence… and it’s a Netflix animated series by the co-director of the Godzilla anime film trilogy, with similar 3D CG animation, despite being handled by ENGI (Kemono Michi, Uzaki-chan Wants To Hang Out) and not Polygon Pictures.
We’re not starting on the right foot, but it’s not like Gamera fans can be picky, this is the first official anything since 2006’s Gamera The Brave, though the premise gave me ‘Nam flashbacks of Gamera Super Monster, since it has my boy face off against 5 old foes, including his arch nemesis Gyaos, over the course of 40 minutes long 6 episodes.
The series is set in the summer of 1989′ Japan, with a group of young boys (six-graders) that have their savings stolen by a bully nicknamed “Brody”, the son of an American army commander, confront him, then a giant monster, Gyaos, attacks Tokyo, but the children are saved by another giant monster, dubbed Gamera.
It’s basically a kaiju gauntlet of sorts, with the human side of the story feeling very Stand By Me-ish but also fitting in theme of Gamera being linked to children, proposing a reinvention of the character and franchise that mixes elements from the old Showa era films with the beloved Heisei trilogy, meaning it’s not actually intended for kids at all, as the plot unfolds more in the ways of conspiracies and dark secrets.
And both the plot and characters are surprisingly compelling, making for a good series in spite of studio ENGI trying to emulate Godzilla Singularity Point’s animation as well… but with lesser results of awkard, stiff looking animated 3D CG humans, when the monsters do look good, sport some great redesigns, and their fights – even if often brief – are indeed quite good.
It’s a drought in every way, so let’s go the ol’ content mill to see what garbage TV disaster movie we can fish out from Amazon Prime Video and it’s ever so unreliable availability of old stuff that now is included with the Prime membership, now isn’t available anymore, or is it but if you subscribe to another channel/service for 8 bucks a month, so sod it, let’s see a random pick from my list which is available for “free”, and if nothing else there’s plenty of these disaster movies to chew through on the service. So i’m kinda glad we didn’t land on one of the Asylum one with this dice throw.
Nope, we’re going back to the late 90s, on the verge of the 2000s being a thing and the Y2K scare was being throttled, with all the bullshit it produced, but it was simpler times as you could make disaster movie about “just” tsunami without the need of a hook like crystal meth spiders hiding under the tectonic plates so now we have swarms of drug spiders being spread by the tidal waves.
Predictably, Tidal Wave: No Escape, directed by George Miller (not that one, despite this George Miller also having a history of directing children movies with/about animals) is about tsunami happening out of the blue (pun) in various american coasts, which forces the usual unwilling “scientist in hiding/ritire” to touch grass and try to make sense of the phenomenon, revealing that he did study a method to artificially create tidal waves, so he gets suspected but then a mysterious voice calls them to inform that the killer waves will happen again, and again and again.
Is Poseidon itself treathening mankind? Will the dumbass army men figure out he’s obviously not the protagonist scientist behind this? Will he form a bond that will bloom into romance with the female scientist that initially thought explosions or meteors were behind the tsunamis?
In terms of plot or characters there’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but even if mostly stereotyped (the dickwad head honcho who is convinced the hero is actually the villain because of petty jealousy, also present in the variant of the more fair and impartial but also incredibly dense black officer whom isn’t as lucky as the dickwad boss), the characters are ok, the acting is decent enough, and surprisingly the effects are not too bad looking today.
Sure, they have certainly aged and are obvious by today’s standards, but this one came before widespread use of cheap digital effects, which are maybe used twice for minor things, so they have to make the waves hitting look real the old fashion way, and for a TV movie of the era it does a respectable job, given the limitations and not having much in terms of “cinematic scope” for spectacle. Again, it was indeed what one could expect for this type of production in that decade.
And to my surprise, Tidal Wave: No Escape it’s actually not bad, not bad at all, the balance between drama and the conspiracy plot is actually nice, and direction is strong especially in the first half, sadly after the mid point and the reveal of a character’s true motivations, the narrative kinda turns into a more typical and a bit too old school action-disaster movie stuffed with boring or filler-ish dialogues so the villain can say something before the climax and some dumb conversations can be had, even thought by this point you won’t really care much about and are just waiting for things to finally unfold as you’d expect they would (and they do).
It’s definitely a naive and kinda outdated relic of its time, especially as you can date it just by how the “hacking” and rudimentary database rummagign is done via old DOS computers on the respectively old timey computer screens not brimming with many colors, but honestly that’s kinda cute to see today, and overall the movie manages to be respectable, enjoyable despite its flaws , which surprisingly do not lie in aged special effects, more in a bloated third act and a fairly thin plot, but it doesn’t bore the viewer with excessive and tiresome pseudo science exposition dumps, plus it does its job with some dignity despite the overall result being just above mediocrity, and that alone is more than one could have expected to say of a 1997 TV disaster movie about tidal waves.
I eventually had to find out this existed, because words like “sequels” don’t mean anything anymore, even more when we dwelve in the “homegrown/DIY” territory of the shark movies, where one name echoes through the vast oceans, Mark Polonia, and he stands atop of his carboard throne, commanding beasts of papermaciè and plastic (and whatever the budget can afford) to fend off the rare adventurers setting off in the desperate quest for the homegrown crown.
So powerful he is that only he can received the task of doing a sequel of a low budget shark movie he didn’t originally make, as Jurassic Shark was directed and produced by Brett Kelly, but that isn’t even the stranger thing about Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse.
That would be this one standing as the “official” sequel, as Brett Kelly also directed Raiders Of The Lost Shark, which was a surprise kind of sequel to Jurassic Shark, as i discussed when reviewing it.
But this one gets to have the Jurassic Shark name and slap a 2 on the end, for whatever reason, and so it kinda surprising the plot has anything to do with the first, as the oil company from the first movie (whom accidentally released the megalodon) is back and wanting to drill for oil of the coast of Cat Island (not that one), and its up to the workers of the oil rig – that accidentally discover the beast – to try and save what they can from its unfeeling jaws… And its amazing inflatable fin.
Police officer Murphy is shot down while confronting a criminal gang, but his body is found by a brood of crocodiles living in Detroit’s sewer system. They nurse him back to health, let him partake of their radioactive flesh, which helps him grow back the lost limbs, and eventually he reemerges into the public eye as the hybrid man-croc vigilante Robocroc.
This is NOT the plot of Robocroc, not that the actual one has anything to do with the movie spoofed in the title. It would took to much time and effort, and this is just not the way these post-Sharkenado low budget killer animal flicks do it. It must be stupid, but within the itsby bitsy budgets, which overtime seem to have gotten smaller and smaller, closer and closer to the “Polonia-sphere”.
So it also means this has more in common with Metal Gear Rising Revengeance than Robocop, as the plot involves a missile launch that goes awry, with the ejected part landing in a zoo, nanomachines coming out of it and into a female crocodile named Stella that happened to be nearby the capsule’s crash site, and these slowly turn her into a cyborg bent on eating his way through the special forces called into the enclosure, then escaping the facility to feed on random people fishing in a lagoon, stopping on dry land to feast on people guilty of driving quad bikes, and finally going for the big feast of a nearby aqua park full of teens partying.
We’re out of Anaconda sequels at the moment (there’s a reboot in the works, confirmed 3 months ago with Tom Gormican, better known for The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent) , so let’s start digging into another barrel o’ snakes by rummaging – as we usually end up doing – through Fred Olen Ray filmography.
Not that i picked up the movie this way, it was another random find on Amazon Prime Video, but there’s no real surprise to see him listed as director… under one of his pseudonyms, Ed Raymond this time, why shouldn’t be his work?
Not to be confused with Silent Venom from 2009, also directed by Fred Olen Ray, in which he realized he could put snakes inside of submarines instead of planes.
Last June we did feature a lot of serpent based movies (often b-movies, that much is true), so we’re doing it again this year too, though on a smaller scale due to an increase of work and other personal obligations. Plus a surprisingly full summer release schedule of films coming out here (united with a nationwide promotion on ticket prices), so there will be a lot of EXPRESSO reviews…. yes, we’ll also review that one with the lead actors that keeps constantly getting arrested, because while i abhor him, i did watch and review movies where he was in before, like the theatherical cut of Justice League or the recently released (and reviewed) Dalìland, where he plays a very minor role, so much i didn’t notice he was in before watching the thing.
So yeah, it wouldn’t be quite correct of me to stop now, especially since i seriously doubt The Flash will do much in terms of box office, i mean, it’s not one of the more popular superheroes, it’s very well known and documented even between the less devoted audiences that Erza Miller is basically assaulting people on a whim at a noticeable rate, both Black Adam and Shazam 2 weren’t well regarded or even that lucrative (though i did rate Fury Of The Gods higher than most, personally), and remember, this movie also exists to completely reset the mess of the DC Extended Universe, so they can start again with Gunn at the helm.
Plus, honestly the movie looks kinda ass, and it’s undeniable this is NOT a project the studios really believes in, otherwise they wouldn’t have advertised it by dangling the return of Michael Keaton as Batman in trailers, like bait. And that’s some good bait.
Again, i don’t blame people opting out of seeing The Flash because of Erza Miller, or regardless of him, you do you. I kinda have to, to a certain degree.
Ah, Makoto Shinkai, one of the relatively newer (and fewer) popular anime film directors, often compared to other big name anime directors that have nothing in common with because we don’t expect anyone to read behind this clickbait opener of an article, and his later work, Suzume, finally hitting theathers worldwide.
For the record, i do find Shinkai to be a very talented director, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that after Your Name he just pigeonholed himself into making the same type of movie over and over again, of which he’s seemingly self-aware because Suzume is a far more straightforward story…. that almost immediatly features a guy turning into a chair.
I knew of that before hand but the execution still threw me off, in a good way, as the story unfolds around a common 17 yo high school girl, the titular Suzume, and a young man named Souta, who end teaming up in preventing eartquakes by locking away mystical doors that appear in ruins , in a road movie-esque fashion.
All “obviously” inspired (even more than Shinkai’s previous movie) by the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, referred to simply by its date (3/11) due to its cultural lasting impact on Japan.
While there’s a lot to like as it’s usual with Shinkai works (characters, animation, mastery in handling emotional weight)… it also suffers from the fact the plot it’s structurally the same we’ve been before, twice, it has some pacing issues towards the end, and you better believe there’s a romance subplot, because.
I do find the ending more fitting the overall message and theme than in Weathering With You, and to be honest even with these flaws, it’s undeniably a good movie that once again demonstrates Shinkai didn’t fluke his way into “anime film royalty”.
To honor the upcoming release of Cocaine Bear here in ol’ Italy (and presumably other european states), there’s only one thing to do: talk about Grizzly… the first one.
Of course, i know, you wanna hear about the infamous sequel that for decades languished in post-production hell, until it actually released in 2020 (what a fuckin year indeed), Grizzly II, but i like being through, and the original Grizzly does have some history as one of the earlier and more popular/recognized Jaws rip-offs, especially for “having everyone in it”.
Just in case the release date didn’t hint of why this one was made, the theatherical poster sported the tagline “the most powerful jaws in the land”, what’s shame for movie marketing anyway?
And given the bucks made by Universal with that animatronic shark that often did not work well or at all, it’s no wonder everyone was jumping on the now proven successful formula, and Grizzly is no different, to the point there’s really no reason in discussing the plot.
Wise Cafe (International) 