Reviews

I read several comments posted here, of grown up men with wife and kids who went on and on about how scary this movie was and how it almost made them pi-, I mean, wet their pants or scream like little girls. So, long story short, I was eager to watch this one, especially because a movie with this budget that succeeds where so many million-dollar-blockbusters fail would have been epic and praiseworthy as a feat in itself.

The movie is not so bad for the first half or so, during which it behaves like an "average" psychological-horror, that is to say, a movie that works solely on atmosphere coupled with a good photography, music and sound effects to create a sense of tension and/or fear; and it does that relatively well, despite being rather slow paced, uneventful and based on a weak plot. So, to wrap it up: no gore, no special effects, and I'd say, no plot twists.

So far it would have been a decent movie (like, 6/10) with some scares (very few) but also pretty boring overall. Fact is that the second part of the movie is actually quite lame, starting from the unnecessary "comic relief" of the nerdy "paranormal investigators" and continuing with the ridiculous "monsters"/spirits, the related paranormal mumbo-jumbo (this time involuntarily comic, I guess) and the laughable "quest" to save the possessed child.

The general acting level left me very unimpressed, and I think that plot, pace, visual effects and ending also leave much to be desired.

However, I keep seeing a lot of 1/10 or 9-10/10 flying around these days on here, which I believe to be extremely unbalanced and almost always undeserved. My rating for this movie is 5/10: surely more than watchable (if you like this kind of "soft horror", that is), but surely not worthy of all the hype surrounding it, and thus deceiving, or better, insidiously crappy.

That is what the Resident Evil franchise appears to be down to after the second installment. This last one steers in that direction even more than its predecessor, Extinction. That third movie is where RE jumped the shark; where it showed that it had nothing more to say or show. Afterlife just stresses that even further and makes it clear that what the producers are after is just trying to squeeze the last bucks out of a withering copyright instead of trying to revitalize and relaunch it.

All that which appears in this movie feels old, overused, clichéd and, utterly predictable: the apocalypse theme; the cloning theme; the recycled bad guy; the same old zombie-Dobermans; the ludicrous resourcefulness and perseverance of the most infamous Umbrella corp.; the bad/half-bad turn-coating character; the wealth of irrelevant 'secondary' (more like nth-ary) characters; the matrix-like bullet time effects; etc.

Of course all those features wouldn't be such a grave issue if they actually contributed to the telling of an interesting and original story, but sadly this is not the case with RE4. I mean, I watched the entire movie and had not one single scare... just long sequences of boring and silly dialogs or boring and 'spectacular' action scenes of the kind that became old shortly after it was first introduced by the Matrix, more than a decade ago. What's more, I think that what really kills the mood is the total unlikeliness and absence of purpose that permeates the whole movie. Alice's clones just get slaughtered by the hundred while Alice herself flies around alone over the US and Canada looking for a bunch of survivors from the previous movie... and lo and behold!, not only does she find (some random) survivors, but none other than the brother of one of the characters from the previous movie that she just saved somewhere else... Oh boy, if that's not a lucky coincidence...

Then there's the usual decimation of the survivors proper of every 'survival horror', but rendered in an extremely uninteresting and trivial way, then the final battle with the 'end level boss', that is also very forgettable. The ending also suggests there's a chance a fifth Resident Evil will be shot... and, although I loved the first two, I hope the writers/director either get their act together or let it rest with a clean shot to the head.

Acting ranges from average to mildly crappy: Milla Jovovich seems to be trapped in a role that has become a caricature of the original Alice, the 'co-stars' Miller and Larter don't shine at all, and Wesker's blank facial expression makes him look more like a moving piece of furniture than a dangerous mutant evil bad-ass.

The wealth of cool CG effects and OK cinematography cannot, IMO, make up for all those flaws, and that's why I think this movie deserves a 5/10 (or something less).

OK, I'll start by saying that what I consider to be mainstays of the 'zombie genre' are "28 days later" and "28 weeks later". That is to say, horror movies with a (possibly logical and consequential) plot, and why not, with some pathos as well. Resident Evil (I+II) follows at some distance after them.

Having said that, this movie is basically the opposite of the ones I just mentioned. What we're talking about is actually an action movie with the zombie element causally thrown in, and that formally transforms it into a survival 'Horror'. Fact is that this movie has no plot, no story, no development, and what's more: no thrills and very few scares...

There is absolutely no explanation behind the story or the characters' existence, actions and behavior, or for the 'zombification' apocalypse that befalls (all around) them. Everything just happens out of the blue and the whole thing feels totally unbelievable and inconsistent.

Cinematography and settings aren't eye appealing either: of course, the ambient is meant to look bleak, but it looks pretty cheap too, just like the few effects used (a couple obvious CG fx, 'blood' splattered everywhere, firearms, wounds and zombie makeup, essentially). Acting is passable on average for this kind of movie, I guess, but it's not like the actors needed to (and surely didn't) use the Stanislavski's system anyhow, given the absolutely shallow dialogs and plot. Ebouaney seemed however to be the most 'credible' (so to speak...) and solid in his performance.

All in all I think this movie brings absolutely nothing new to the genre, and if it weren't shot, its absence wouldn't certainly have been felt. That's why I think this is a mediocre movie, and quite boring as well (4.5/10), but maybe the most devoted horror enthusiasts will appreciate it more than I did.

I believe that the most notable characteristic of this movie can be summarized by the poster on the left: a list of 'big' names and known faces, all mixed up together regardless of their actual role and its (ir)relevance to the 'story'. To be more clear, Willis plays an insignificant cameo of some minutes, Rourke has a very minor role, "Stone Cold" has a minor role AND is a 'bad guy', almost same thing for Lundgren, etc, etc. You could also see this as an example of deceptive advertising, in a sense: throwing in big names to have some people say "wow! what a cast! I gotta watch this!". Of course, having big names in a movie would be a good thing, if only the actors that bear those names were given a meaningful role and the chance(/ability?) to play it. Of all the actors cited in that list, only Stallone, Statham an (oddly enough) Li play what one might call 'main' roles, and the first two are the ones who actually have some lines of dialog too. Yes, this is an action movie, not a drama, but I don't believe this can be a justification for ridiculously ill developed plot and characters (e.g. the 'apex' of character development this movie reaches is well exemplified by two ludicrously sketchy sequences that involve Statham and Mrs. Carpenter), and for fast paced action that sadly doesn't 'connect' in order to form a linear and accomplished plot sequence. How are Stallone and 'his squad' organized? Who are they, and what's their background? What's the deal with the bad guys? What are they doing? Who the hell is Willis supposed to be and why/how does he contract these guys? And so on, and on. (Incidentally, the scene with Willis and *won't spoil this 'surprise'* is for some reason one of the most self-indulging and 'least-funny-while-trying-too-hard-to-be' I've seen recently)

The movie does almost nothing in order to create a sense of 'perspective' and purpose to help the viewer relate to what's going on and feel intrigued by it. It's all about martial arts, weapons and explosions, but if this is all one is entitled to expect from an action movie, then, hell, we already have dozens of Seagal and Van Damme's flicks out there that do exactly the same things without all the 'glittering stars' Stallone could draw upon.

As the saying goes: All that glitters...

6/10

...if you look at all the scores the IMDb gave his movies, I think you'd come up with an (estimated) average of about 5/10, with only 48 Hours and the first Beverly Hills Cop going past the 7: someone here must really hate the guy...

OK, they're all comedy (or action-comedy) movies (except for Dreamgirls, where he's not the main lead anyway), and comedy movies, we all know, don't win Oscars: for some weird reason, critics everywhere seem to think that the value of a movie is directly proportional to the amount of sadness and tears said movie is able to provoke and/or to the number of philosophy classes the viewer must've taken in order to 'truly' understand the subtext(s) the writer/director so generously intertwined in their masterpiece.

Well, if that's the meter, then I concur, Murphy's movies deserve the abysmal scores they got and keep getting, but if not, I think they should be considered ALSO in light of their intended audience and goals: of what they are. For instance, regarding this movie, as soon as I saw the Nickelodeon logo during the opening titles I just thought "crap!" and then "oh well...". What I mean is that this is obviously intended as a family comedy movie and that it should also be treated as such. I mean, the apex of profanity Murphy is allowed here is "poop"... As someone else already wrote in his review, this is not the Godfather, nor does it presume to be.

I consider Murphy to be one of the most entertaining comedy actors of the 80's, with what I deem milestones of that genre, such as Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America. After that, I believe his career actually started to go downhill, culminating with movies such as Norbit or Meet Dave. This said, and all things considered, I believe this particular movie deserves a pass grade, a C. OK, as I said, this is not the Murphy from BHC or TP, I think that's clear, that that character, along with those times, are long gone by now; but I believe he delivers a pretty decent acting performance in this unassuming movie, as does his co-lead, the child who plays his daughter. The story offers nothing new or original, and honestly, it's quite silly, the 'message' is the generic "find time to spend with your children and learn to listen to them". However, overall I found the movie to be mildly entertaining, thanks also to the 'fake' native American character, Whitefeather, and his peculiar 'business communication' style. The cinematography is clean and I think I saw no trace of CG whatsoever, which has become quite the remarkable thing in itself these days. So, in the end I wouldn't recommend this to just anybody, but I believe it's a nice little movie to watch with your children, or if you're an Eddie Murphy aficionado. 6/10.

...Phillips, Chandrasekhar, Mann, Landis: pay attention and take notes if you're planning a Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch, Miami Vice, Blues Brothers or whatever v.2 II (or better still, a Cheech and Chong 2 thousand).

First thing first, I was a fan of the original series, and this usually means having an overcritical approach to the new which tries to emulate/revisit/renovate the old: the actors don't fit the roles, the dialogs don't respect the 'original spirit', Sacrilege!!! and so on.

Well, I was actually VERY skeptical about this one as well (the titles I listed above are just a partial example of how things may go awry in the process). The A-team was one of those 'silly' shows with 'overexaggerated', well, basically everything: cartoon-like action scenes (with fake furniture), zillions of (fake) explosions and bullets (from bottomless magazines), 'flying' cars, overacted characters, and last but not least, not a single death. It was difficult to think someone could re-engineer all this to our definitely more violent and crude times and tastes without 'betraying the spirit' of the original franchise. Well, I think director/writer Carnahan did it. Kudos to that.

This new installment is, in practice, an 'alternate reality' prequel (i.e. the team members didn't serve together in the army) to the series, set in modern times (i.e. Gulf war 2 instead of Vietnam), doing pretty much what the last Star Trek movie did with respect to the original series. But unlike Star Trek, things don't change so dramatically this time around (that is to say, there's no shift from a genre (sci-fi) to another (action)). Sure, we get a modern setting, new actors, deaths (although not graphically depicted), but basically things don't stray too far from the original path: we still get the humor from the Murdoch-B.A. duo, the penchant of Face for women, the obsession of the Colonel for plans, and of course brand new, digitally enhanced spectacular explosions and action scenes, more unbelievable and preposterous than ever (memorable in this respect the scene of the 'flying tank'). What most notably changes at a script level is, I believe, the bigger role assigned to Cooper's Face in this one. This time in fact the writers decided to let that character 'go beyond' his 'institutional' role of womanizer/charlatan and 'steal' some of what should've been Liam Neeson's work. However, I think that this choice blends well in the story and that all of the main actors performs quite admirably in their respective roles (maybe Jackson's Baracus is somewhat sub par), which is to be commended, especially given the inherent challenge of 'filling someone else's shoes'. Jessica Biel is always something to behold (even as an ornament) and the bad guys are quite funny and enjoyable as well.

In the end, I think this is a good movie to watch if: 1) you like action movies in general 2) you wanna spend a couple hours with a light and funny action/comedy 3) you are/were a fan of the original series

For once, I agree with the IMDb rating, and believe that the 7.5/10 is well deserved. Thumbs up and awaiting the next one.

And if an action movie is boring, it simply is a failure. Where to begin? This movie is a mass of sloppy clichés: the righteous hero; the quest for revenge; the disposable secondary characters who happily die helping him; the stereotyped evil, infamous and power thirsty nemesis; the happily ever after finale; and so forth. The fact that half of the actors speak British English and the other half American English didn't help much in making their Greek mythological characters particularly credible (to my ears at least). Furthermore, those characters are simply too plain and shabby: no depth, no attitude, bare and completely forgettable (every single one of them). The action scenes are ill conceived and even worse executed. The direction wasn't able to give a sense of continuity and seamless and gradual flowing to the story: it feels almost like a series of separate episodes (badly) glued together (which is also reflected by the cinematography: bleak and dark settings, then sunny and idyllic ones...). The CG is there and is not so bad in itself, but it doesn't help at all: almost feels like out of place and unnecessary.

I was actually falling asleep while watching this...

One of the worst movies I've watched in the last few months: don't bother with it. 4.5/10

That's the closest comparison I could come up with after watching Solomon Kane, basically for two reasons: 1) they both are, basically, no brainer action movies 2) the main character here immediately reminded me of Jackman in Van Helsing (guess they couldn't afford to hire Jackman...).

Aside for that, I actually believe SK is better than VH. I particularly enjoyed the camera work (maybe a tad too much floating 'snow' in too many outdoor scenes...): atmospheric bleak and dark colors, beautiful scenery and settings.

James Purefoy does a good job in the portrayal of Kane, especially considering this is 'just' an action movie, after all. Feels like he 'owns' the role, which is very important in creating a sense of 'credibility' to the whole movie.

Yes, the story itself is nothing special and quite stereotyped as well: bad guy redeems himself becoming the good guy; good guy must defeat supreme evil and save the 'damsel in distress'; good guy vs. (tons of) bad guy(s); good guy kicks ass against all odds; good guy saves the day; bad guys' mastermind bites the dust. Nothing new there. Nonetheless, again, you know you're going to watch an action movie, and that's how action flicks are. In this perspective I enjoyed watching it. Of course, it's NOT a masterpiece, but nonetheless a nice addition to its genre, and I hope it sells well enough to convince the producers to complete the trilogy.

7/10