[Resident Evil Live Action Film Retrospective] #3: Resident Evil Extinction (2007)

3 years after Apocalypse, we’re back with the Adventures of Alice in Resident Evil spin-off cinema land… but she wakes up as she did in the first movie, has some flashbacks, faces some traps, then dies and she’s retrieved by scientists?

Yep, considering the finale of Apocalypse and the opening act leading to a reveal of a mass grave of Alices, it’s not that surprising that we would eventually see the series go hard on the clonatron, upping the ante by explaining that Umbrella didn’t contain shit, and the epidemic spred all over the world, eventually turning the globe into a post-apocalyptic barren, withered zombie wasteland.

The Alice clone that survived/was let go now roams on a motorbike, alongside other survivors as they try to escape the zombies by moving to Alaska through the Mojave desert.

And stopping by Las Vegas, nominally for fuel, factually because its Las Vegas, where they don’t actually stay much, despite the marketing for the movie emphasizing the “Vegas trip”.

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Pikmin 4 NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Enter The Dogbus

10 years after the last mainline game, the beloved Nintendo series about floral strategy and cutesy war PTSD is back with Pikmin 4 for Nintendo Switch, and i was even more eager to get my mittens on it after replaying for review & funsies Pikmin 3 in its Deluxe edition-port on Switch.

Who am i kidding, after devouring the demo, i was ravenous to get into the full game ASAP.

Story is fairly typical Pikmin, as in, you know the deal by now: people keep crashlanding on this damn planet. And by people i mean poor Olimar, that crashlanded on the planet, sent out a SOS call, but then the rescue team itself had troubles with the ship, so its up to you, as the new recruit of the Rescue Corps (an intergalactic rescue organization) and one of its few “non-scattered around” remaining members to get the whole crew back together, then find and save Olimar, whom also sent them various pages of its journal.

Someone seem confused in terms of when it happens, even confusing it for a reboot/remake of the first game’s story (i guess since Olimar here too used Pikmins to get back the scattered pieces of its rundown but beloved ship, the Dolphin)… dunno why, but yep, since Olimar and Louie are involved too, and we get the new group of cute potato aliens also discuss of Koppai, the planet from where the expedition group of Pikmin 3 came from to avoid famine, heck, even an inhabitant from that planet later becomes an important plot point.

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[EXPRESSO] Gamera: Rebirth (2023) | Stand By My Gamera

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.

Interdit Aux Chiens Et Aux Italiens (No Dogs Or Italians Allowed) AKA Manodopera (2022) | Piedmotion Animation

A french-italian stopmotion animation, already a white fly, and for less than 4 bucks due a nationwide italian & european cinema initiative? Say no more, i’m so gonna see this, even more as it won a prize at Annecy 2022’s edition.

This is basically the director, Alain Ughetto, tracing back his italian ancenstry, depicting the lives of his grandfather and family of farmers that back in early 1900’s moved from their small mountain village in Piedmont (dubbed affectionally as “Ughetterra”, the land of the Ughettos), crossing the Alps to start a new life in France, in search of any menial or dangerous labor that they could do, their eventual rise to small land-owners, and their nomad lifestyle due to labor but also – among other things – the rise of the Fascism in Italy.

This is told in an amusing and wholesomw fashion, that not so much breaks the fourth wall but use it as a “portal” tool to deliver the narrative, as the director-animator narrates and creates the stopmotion sets, its characters, directly interacts with them (like letting his hand into frame to hand a character a tiny hammer), but frames it as a dialog with his grandmother that recounts the chronicles of the family through the decades, encompassing many heavy subjects as wars, epidemics, racism, clerical hypocrisy, but also the joyful moments (and some fun meta gags).

It’s a really intimate, charming and emotional portrait of turn of the centhury italian immigrants bound to a rough life of difficulties, of split loyalties and fractured national identities due to family always living – often literally – on the borders, malincholic but also fond of having a few laughs and exactly as long as it needs to be, even if that means on the shorter side of things.

Warmly recommended.

[EXPRESSO] Zombie 100: Bucket List Of The Dead (2023) | Cross-Z Shark! Are you ready?

Given the success of the live action adaptation of Haro Aso’s Alice In Borderland manga, it’s no wonder Netflix also ordered a live action movie based on one of his other works, the zombie comedy Zombie 100: Bucket List Of The Dead, also adapted into an anime TV series that started airing this July.

The premise sees Akira, a young man working for a japanese “black company” , bullied by his boss, working non stop like a robot, sleeping in the office… until a good ol’ fashioned zombi apocalypse happens. So finally free, he jots down a list of 100 things he wants to do before death (or “undeath”) catches up with him, eventually finds his best friend and encounters other survivors….

Yeah, this is a fun and – almost – novel twist to the over-explored (both for drama and comedy) zombie apocalypse mold, the spin here is quite fun and light-hearted, making for a slice of life episodic narrative that…would have simply worked better as a series instead of a 2 hour movie feeling like episodes of a TV series stapled together, making me wonder if this was the compromise to avoid having both adaptations cannibalizing each other.

Thought this live action film is far more “sanitized” compared to the manga, i guess to make it feel akin to the Netflix Alice In Borderland adaptation that mostly eskwed fanservice or sexual content (though gore is abundant and far from hidden), but honestly it feel longer that it needs and characters are likeable enough but fairly stock.

Though it also features a mutant zombie shark that’s already better than the entire film “Zombie Shark”, fought in sentai style because the lead actor played Ryuga Banjo in Kamen Rider Build.

So, overall, it’s decent enough, very cute, for what it is.

[EXPRESSO] Meg 2: The Trench (2023) | Cranking It Up

As one of that quite enjoyed the first The Meg (believe it or not at the time it had some very split reception from genre fans), i was waiting for its sequel arrive in theathers, pretty giddy about it too, though honestly shark movie fans nowadays pretty much HAVE to make do with anything in terms of theathrical releases.

After all, we are in such an ironic drought that even The Asylum has to commission their mockbusters to the Polonia Bros, so yeah, i’m quite glad we get more “megalomachia” as Jason Statham once again dons the eco-warrior kick ass action hero character whose name i honestly forgot, not that you’re gonna call him that (leave to a side-villain to scream his name when confronting him), and this time he ventures with a new submarine alongside his old and new sealab companions, with the idea to go even further below to where the “megs” prosper, but accidents happen as they also stumble upon an illegal underwater mining operations, and explosions let many of the deep sea creatures reach the surface and start causing the mess, including a giant octopus and what are basically abyss deep “varan-raptors”, frigging dinosaurs.

While the first one was fun, this one is arguably better, with more variety of locations, creatures and set pieces, since we don’t spend half (or all) the movie in the usual high tech underwater lab where the megalodons are kept, but we quickly move to the abyss trench and its peculiar fauna, the mining company installation, even some tropical resort island, and we even get monster vs monster action.

Honestly Meg 2: The Trench has pretty much everything you’d want from one of these dumb ass big budget shark/dinosaur films, very entertaining, with enjoyable characters and abundant over the top action.

Mid-August Slumber

As previously hinted, i will be taking a weekly break from any and all posts on here, from August 11 until August 17, to also celebrate some holidays here.

That’s about it, see ya next for the a couple more reviews before the break!

Pinocchi-O-Rama #7: Gepetto (Manwha)

If we’re talking about comics, we all known where Pinocchio comes to mind, though indirectly, as “The God Of Manga” Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney’s adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s book, and wanted to create a “reverse 21^th Centhury Pinocchio”, a robotic boy already created to be as close as possible to perfection. I really don’t need to introduce Astro Boy, do i?

Tezuka would eventually do his own manga adaptation of Pinocchio, which would be interesting, but maybe too obvious, so we’re not reviewing that or Astro Boy.

Nope, we’re going for something far more recent, and pay visit to what i feel it’s an underestimated country in terms of comics, South Korea, that while it did get inspired by Japan’s anime/manga style and legacy, managed to create something distinct or similar but possessing its own personality and soul, dubbed as “manwha” for shorthand.

Though one could be forgiven to think that mostly it’s a matter of where its coming from instead of the content itself, given we had many distincly “manga” series come out from european or non-japanese artists (an easy example is Tony Valente’s Radiant), and the more successful/publicized often are aimed to the same age demographic as shonen mangas, or belong to popular genre trends.

But for each “God Of High School”, we have more unique work, like Hyung Min-woo’s western horror themed Priest, inspired by Monolith Productions FPS game BLOOD.

While a number of manwha series were and are given print editions in many countries (including Italy and France), the most common way to consume and access manwha in both its country of origin and international is “the internetz” and sites like Webtoon.

And indeed one can read the entire manwha we’re talking about today, Gepetto by Jewon Yeon, english translated on Webtoon, for free.

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Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse (2021) [REVIEW] | Sequelgeddon #sharksncrocspartdeux

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.

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L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce (The Island Of The Fishmen) (1979) [REVIEW] | Dr. Moreau From The Deep

I guess fate does exist, because i randomly picked up at a local flea market a DVD copy of “L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce” (translating to “The Island Of The Fishmen”, literally) for less than 3 bucks, figured i’d review that for a lark, only to find out this movie is actually known among fans of B-movies as “Screamers”, in its edited and reworked version handled by Roger Corman that cuts some footage, inserts a new opening and adds extra gore.

While also using false advertising in marketing with text claimining it’s about “people turned inside out”. This is an utter lie, because it also implies this is a horror film…. yes but it’s also a fantasy adventure flick that also pinches ideas from Island Of Dr. Moreau (and also reminding one of the Corman’s Humanoids From The Deep, for example) and uses horror cliches like a mad scientist creating a humanoid hybrid race of people, but it also has heavy adventure movie elements like the natives and the sunken civilizations and stuff.

So if you have memories on seeing this as “Screamers” on TV or VHS, sorry, we’re talking about the original, untouched italian version of “The Island Of The Fishmen”.

Also, i promise there are no One Piece jokes here, tempting as they were to make.

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