October Belongs to Horror #6: Dead Rising: Endgame

Dead Rising: Endgame
Legendary Digital Media, DR2 Productions, Contradiction Films, Sony Pictures Entertainment, USA, Canada, 2016.

Watching "Dead Rising: Watchtower" first is a must the plot will be difficult to grasp. Two years after the zombie outbreak of the first film military and pharmaceutical company Phenotrans are kidnapping people. Chase (Jesse Metcalfe) is trying to expose the conspiracy and find his former photographer Jordan (Keegan Connor Tracy) but he gets cold shoulder from his TV-channel who are afraid to publish the scoop. His workmates Sandra (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Jill (Jessica Harmon) have different opinions about continuing the crusade. Well, it is better do do something soon as naughty General Lyons (Dennis Haysbert) plans to destroy everyone who knows about the conspiracy.

Chase Carter

Sandra and Jill

Defected company scientis Hancock (Ian Tracey) tells about project Afterlife. Military plans to kill all the 1.5 million who are getting treatment for the zombie virus. Chase, Sandra, Hancock and weapons dealer Garth (Patrick Sabongui) form a team to save the infected. The clock is ticking and the heroes have to infiltrate a server farm in zombie-infested area. The zombies have previously been of the slow type, but now new genetically-altered bald-headed zombies appear, and boy are they fast. Scientist named Rand (Billy Zane) has been doing secret experiments. Jordan returns, but she is not her usual self and no wonder considering what has been done to her.

Let's go to work

Jordan

Rand

The sequel is less-like video game, the horror is a bit more effective and gorier. Still the improvised weapons are in use, but they seem more practical than the crazy gadgets of the first film. Over all the plot feels more serious, leaving less room for black comedy or cool boss fights which is a loss. Still there are good action scenes and Chase has evolved into zombie slayer who chops zombies like there is no tomorrow. The end fight is quite awesome. In the end Chuck Greene (Victor Webster) from game "Dead Rising 2" can be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel would follow, as the end leaves the plot lines hanging.

Chuck Greene

Rating: Good

Starring: Jesse Metcalfe, Marie Avgeropoulos, Ian Tracey, Keegan Connor Tracy, Jessica Harmon, Patrick Sabongui, Camille Sullivan, Jim Thorburn, Billy Zane, Dennis Haysbert, Teach Grant, Lee Majdoub, Sandy Robson, Donavon Stinson, Peter Kelamis, Ben Cotton, Viv Leacock, Luvia Petersen, Stephen Lobo, Dakota Guppy, Curtis Lum, Heather Roop, Jim Shield, Victor Webster, Sarah Lindsay, Joshua Roy, Peter Brown, Naomi Kyle

Director: Pat Williams

October Belongs to Horror #5: Dead Rising: Watchtower

Dead Rising: Watchtower
Legendary Digital Media, Contradiction Films, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Dead Rising Productions, USA, Canada, 2015.

Based on Capcom's video game series.

Reporter Chase Carter (Jesse Metcalfe) is making a scoop about zombie epidemic with photographer Jordan (Keegan Connor Tracy). The infected must use Zombrex-medicine once a day to avoid being turned into zombies. But the drug stops working and soon the street are full of hungry monsters. 

Chase Carter

Jordan

The army starts firebombing the city after time limit is reached. The survivor celebrity of the previous outbreak Frank West (Rob Riggle) comments the happenings in his bluntly realistic style so that the interviewer rolls her eyes. As a comical relief, Frank is a bit like Bruce Campbell's Ash. Jordan's side mission is to seek allies outside the quarantine area to help Chase get out. The goverment officials General Lyons (Dennis Haysbert) and Norton (Gary Jones) have their orders, but can either of them be trusted?

Frank West

General Lyons and Norton

Chase joins forces with Crystal (Meghan Ory) who has her own supply of Zombrex that works. There is a sinister conspiracy behind the recent outbreak. A bit of tragedy is brought by Maggie (Virginia Madsen) who is searching for her lost daughter. It will not end well...

Crystal

Maggie and the other heroes assess the situation

The story goes on with familiar structure of video games. There are occasional boss fights and improvised weapons such as power tools attached to mallets, chainsaws and shovel-swords. The highlights include fights against Bonzo the Zombie Clown (C. Ernst Harth) and psychotic biker gang leader Logan (Aleks Paunovic).

Logan

Bonzo the Zombie Clown

These are useful for cutting down zombies

As a video game movie this is faithful to the world of the original games, satisfying the video game fans. There is not much new added to the genre but otherwise the story is passable. Over the top zombie mayhem is good although sometimes also quite tasteless even for considering the zombie topic. The action has some well designed scenes such as long one-shot scene where Chase escapes zombies climbing over cars and a school bus. Also the combo weapons are wacky and inventive. Entertaining stuff although the almost two-hour duration could have been condensed. The cast has familiar faces from TV shows, pretty co-stars and Jesse Metcalfe fits the role of hotshot reporter hero. The movie ends in a way that sequel is inevitable.

Rating: Good

Starring: Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory, Virginia Madsen, Keegan Connor Tracy, Aleks Paunovic, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Jones, Carrie Genzel, Rob Riggle, Reese Alexander, Harley Morenstein, Julia Benson, Peter Benson, Darren Dolynski, Patrick Sabongui, Travis MacDonald, Michael Bean, Sachin Sahel, Khaira Ledeyo, James Yi, Colton Quan, Manny Jacinto, David Lyle, Gaston Morrison, Todd Thomson, C. Ernst Harth, Taya Clyne, Nickolas Baric, Ed Brando, Paul Lazenby, Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska, Mark Wilmot 

Director: Zach Lipovsky

Movie Review: Warcraft: The Beginning

Warcraft: The Beginning
Atlas Entertainment, Legendary Entertainment, Blizzard Entertainment, Universal Pictures, China, Canada, Japan, USA, 2016. 

Warcraft III was a great game. Epic fantasy plot with Humans, Elves, Orcs and Undead was both dark and fascinating. The graphics were good for its time, but somehow the characters looked sympathetically blocky, making the action look darkly humorous which was emphasized by hilarious quotes. I have never played World of Warcraft, but it seemed to maintain the visual style of original games. The movie is freely based on the storyline and characters of the original Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans.

The movie came late (WoW has been running since 2004) and it was crushed by Western critics. Still it was big in China, and Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score was positive. So it can't be totally bad, right? 

By the way the chart looks similar to "King Arthur Legend of the Sword" that seems to flop in the USA, but those who have seen it have generally liked it (I haven't so I can't really say my opinion about that):

Just to show that the fans of certain movie genres shouldn't blindly trust reviews, as they will probably see things differently than the critics. Except for "Lord of the Rings" the medieval fantasy adventures are currently not popular in the USA as superhero movies take the profits. But like any movie genre the medieval fantasy genre will come back again: who would have believed "Pirates of the Caribbean" would be a success after box-office failure of "Cutthroat Island" (which wasn't a bad film, just released in the wrong time)?

Orcs and humans have been enemies since forever. The world of the orcs is dying and they need a new home. Ruthless orc shaman Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) sacrifices prisoners to open a portal to peaceful human kingdom of Azeroth. However it is Gul'dan's evil Fel-magic that is killing the world and Orc Warchief Durotan (Toby Kebbell) does not believe that slaughtering innocents is honourable and heroic. So he needs to find allies against Gul'dan.

Durotan and Blackhand

Gul'dan

Commander Lothar of the Humans (Travis Fimmel) goes to investigate the attacks on military posts. Guardian Medivh (Ben Foster), who should protect Azeroth, does not play with a full deck. Lothar and his new friends Mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer) and half-orc Garona (Paula Patton) join the quest to save the world. King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper) and Queen Lady Taria (Ruth Negga) hope that everything goes well and that there could be peace between humans and orcs.

Lothar and Garona

Lady Taria

King Llane Wrynn

Political intrigue keeps things complicated and it is not at all clear who will survive to the end. Durotan's family brings sympathetic aspect to the story of orcs. However the story has too many characters introduced in short time so the motives of the human characters are hastily told. The full-packed story has its flaws it is still one of the better video game adaptations.

Khadgar

Medivh

The geek inside finds joy about the relative faithfulness to the games. Most hardcore fans will always find something to complain about, but otherwise the film makes a new job recreating the world of the games and the graphics look amazing. Bird's eye shots nicely show the size of the world, and remind about the real time strategy game roots. Like the campaigns of original games it is not all battles, but bases are being built and resources are gathered also. Orcs are pleasantly bulky and the battles have raw energy. Couple of familiar monster types appear and orcs ride wolves and humans ride gryphons. The costumes and items look as they should. There is also the amusing sheep spell known from the games. The ending leaves everything open for future movies and it would be disappointing if this wouldn't get sequels.

Rating: Good

Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Ruth Negga, Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie, Burkely Duffield, Ryan Robbins, Dean Redman, Glenn Ennis, Terry Notary, Elena Wurlitzer, Michael Adamthwaite, Anna Van Hooft, Callan Mulvey, Adrian Glynn McMorran, Kyle Rideout, Michael Antonakos, Elisabeth Rosen, Patrick Sabongui, Kent O'Connor, Wesley MacInnes, Mackenzie Gray, Christian Sloan, Valérie Wiseman, Dan Payne, Eugene Lipinski, Christina Jastrzembska, Travis MacDonald, Frank C. Turner, Tommy Rieder, Dylan Schombing, Donavon Stinson, Meelah Robbins, One Take Charlie
Director: Duncan Jones

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Retribution

Resident Evil: Retribution a.k.a Resident Evil V: Retribution
Screen Gems A Sony Pictures Entertainment Company, Constantin Film International, Davis Films/Impact Pictures, Capcom Company, Germany, Canada, USA, France, 2012.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) was stripped of her superpowers in the previous movie, not that it makes much difference. As a zombie-killer she is still unmatchable. She and other survivors are attacked by former friend Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory). Alice wakes up with a new hair-do and a family. Then the zombie apocalypse starts again and she finds herself trapped in Umbrella-company's underground simulator facility. Spy/thief Ada Wong (Bingbing Li) helps her escape by orders from Max Headroom impersonator Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts). Also Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb) and other pals are coming to rescue Alice. 

Alice

Overeager Milla fans

 

I liked the first "Resident Evil" movie and also the second movie had is good parts. After that the series just ceased to pretend that it had anything to do with the original game universe. In the original games the original scenarios were about bioweapon tests gone haywire in limited buildings or towns making the exploration of the areas scary. With global zombie apocalypse the series kind of painted itself into a corner as the suspense of the first parts was lost and replaced with big action scenes. The overblown action scenes do not really have much suspense or horror as Alice always pwns the enemies, with or without superpowers.

AdaWong

Leon S. Kennedy

Bad Rain

The plot feels like a rehash of best of scenes the previous "Resident Evils" with ideas from "Aliens" mixed in. It feels also a recap episode of the previous films and an introduction to the next Resident Evil movie. There is not much story, the characters just move from one arena to another and fight zombies and Umbrella thugs. 

Important characters from the games Ada Wong and Leon S. Kennedy are introduced into the series with minimal characterization. They just appear from somewhere and feel like minimal homages to the games. Compared to the witty hero that he was in animated "Resident Evil: Damnation" I can not believe how generic Leon feels in the live action films. Thanks to cloning technology Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) who died in the first movie returns as different incarnations: the good and the bad but the zombie Rain was cut from the film. Overall the dialogue is dull and underdeveloped characters are just reading their lines. The characters from the games and previous films appear, some of them die but nobody cares. Even as a video game it would feel weak as the video games nowadays manage to have more interesting and rootable character characters.The action scenes are heavily CGI-enhanced and couple of the effects look surprisingly cheap. Hey, the car in the metro tunnel scene gave me flashback that I was watching some film made by The Asylum.

The worst part of the series.

Rating: Very bad 

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Aryana Engineer, Bingbing Li, Boris Kodjoe, Johann Urb, Robin Kasyanov, Kevin Durand, Ofilio Portillo, Oded Fehr, Colin Salmon, Shawn Roberts, Toshio Oki, Takato Yamashita, Mika Nakashima, Megan Charpentier, Ave Merson-O'Brian, Raymond Olubawale, Kevin Shand, Razaaq Adoti, Kim Coates, Martin Crewes, Iain Glen, Sandrine Holt, Thomas Kretschmann, Ali Larter, Spencer Locke, Eric Mabius, Wentworth Miller, James Purefoy, Norman Yeung, Anna Bolt, Indra Ové, Joseph May, Heike Makatsch, Liz May Brice, Pasquale Aleardi, Sally Cahill, Amanda Dyar, Reese Riley, Chris Sullins, Vaja 

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Damnation

Resident Evil: Damnation a.k.a Biohazard: Damnation 

Capcom Company, Digital Frontier, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Japan, 2012. 

In a former Soviet state civil war is raging (kind of foreshadoing the Ukraine crisis) and the rebels are using biological weapons. Zombies and mutant monsters are approaching the President's palace. Special Agent Leon S. Kennedy (Matthew Mercer) is recalled home but he decides to finish his mission without American support. After a fight with Licker-monster Leon finds himself captured by trio of rebels: America fan J.D. (Val Tasso), old coughing Ataman (Robin Sachs) and bitter rebel Alexander a.k.a Buddy (Dave Wittenberg).

Leon

Licker

J.D and Buddy

Mysterious thief Ada Wong (Courtenay Taylor) is also on her own mission. Her motives are always shady and this adventure doesn't really make them much clearer. Still she has liking to Leon and Leon gets also some unlikely allies that are helpful when fighting the ever more dangerous zombie mutants. Leon finds out that every faction of the civil war has dirty hands.

President Svetlana Belikova

Just another day in Eastern Europe

Ada Wong

Stand alone sequel to "Resident Evil: Degeneration" is the faithful continuation of "Resident Evil" games (somewhere between parts 5 and 6) that can not be said about the live-action films.  Okay, the first "Resident Evil" movie was good, but the series went downhill since. These computer generated RE animations are getting much better than the live-action films. Although they are not the best scifi-horror made in Japan, they still beat most of the video game adaptations. The story has a good combination of action, intrigue, horror and humour. Leon has some witty dialogue and one liners and the Japanese style adds some tragic aspect to some of the characters. The animation looks good with good character animation, backgrounds and impressive monsters. As a horror-action film it offers solid fun and it is a good video game movie too.

Tyrant

Rating: Good

Voice actors: Matthew Mercer, Dave Wittenberg, Wendee Lee, Val Tasso, Robin Sachs, Courtenay Taylor, Salli Saffioti, David Vincent, Patrick Seitz, Michael McConnohie, Patrick Harlan
Director: Makoto Kamiya

Movie Review: Need for Speed

Need for Speed
DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Bandito Brothers, USA, UK, France, Philippines, 2014.

Based on the "Need For Speed" racing video game series.

I feel the need...the need for speed!

Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) is a rising racer but struggling with money troubles. He earns extra bucks in illegal street races. Rich boy Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) hires Tobey and his mechanics to build a Ford Mustang Shelby. Mr. Ingram's (Stevie Ray Dallimore) buying agent Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots) wants Tobey to show if the car is really as fast as Tobey says it is. However Dino is annoyed that Tobey is better driver than he, so he challenges Tobey. 

Tobey Marshall

Dino Brewster

Mr. Ingram and Julia Maddon

In the following race with Koenigsegg Agera super cars Dino pushes Tobey's friend Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) off the road and Pete dies. Dino escapes and Tobey goes to jail for two years. Meanwhile Dino also steals Tobey's girlfriend Anita (Dakota Johnson). Tobey wants revenge and also to clear his name.

Anita

Ford Mustang Shelby

Monarch

Mystical millionaire Monarch (Michael Keaton), who is kind of homage to the DJ from "Vanishing Point", is arranging De Leon Race for the best street racers. Tobey makes a deal with Mr. Ingram so he can borrow the Mustang. But he needs also an invitation to the race, so he must gain attention and drive across the USA in 45 hours while evading cops. Julia comes along. First their cooperation has a rough start, but not surprisingly they begin to like each other. Tobey's pals pilot Benny Jackson (Scott Mescudi a.k.a Kid Cudi) and mechanics Finn (Rami Malek) and Joe (Ramon Rodriguez) work as their support team.

Benny 'Maverick' Jackson

Finn and Joe

Guys playing Need for Speed (What else?)

Then Tobey hits the pedal to the metal until the foot almost goes through the car floor.

Cockpit views give video game style appearance

The plot goes roughly the video game career mode: in the first races older muscle cars are used, later the cars get more powerful and expensive. Although the story is basically the plot of "200 M.P.H." on steroids the racing scenes and crazy stunts make it worthwhile. Absurd plot and video game logic will deter those looking for intelligent entertainment but as a popcorn racing movie it works well. There is a bit cheesy drama and hit-or-miss jokes, but the main point is the exciting driving scenes with expensive supercars. Also Aaron Paul's and Imogen Poots' acting saves a lot. It is also a decent video game movie.

Rating: Good

Starring: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Harrison Gilbertson, Dakota Johnson, Stevie Ray Dallimore, Michael Keaton, Alan Pflueger, Brian L. Keaulana, Logan Holladay, Carmela Zumbado, Jalil Jay Lynch, Nick Chinlund, Chad Randall, Buddy Joe Hooker, Rich Rutherford, Tony Brakohiapa, Brent Fletcher, Paul Dallenbach, Kanin Howell, Michael Rose, Beth Waugh, E. Roger Mitchell, Antoni Corone, Frank Brennan, Tara Jones, Han Soto, Jill Jane Clements, Rick Shuster, John Gatins, Kerry Gatins, Adora Dei, Charles Black, Tierre Turner, Michael C. Smith, Tim Gilbert, Mike Massa, John Meier, Thomas Rosales Jr., Jacki Hill, Chloe Warren, Chelsea Small
Director: Scott Waugh