BloodRayne.

Review #2317: BloodRayne.

Cast: 

Kristanna Loken (Rayne), Michael Madsen (Vladimir), Ben Kingsley (Kagan), Michelle Rodriguez (Katarin), Matthew Davis (Sebastian), Will Sanderson (Domastir), Geraldine Chaplin (Fortune Teller), Udo Kier (Regal Monk), Meat Loaf (Leonid), Michael Paré (Iancu), and Billy Zane (Elrich) Directed by Uwe Boll (#1765 - In the Name of the King, #1924 - Alone in the Dark, #2144 - House of the Dead)

Review: 

I forgot that Boll wanted to be a filmmaker because he saw Mutiny on the Bounty as a kid...the Marlon Brando version. This was the third film in what you might as well call the Boll Gaming Cycle that came in the wake of House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark (2005). The movie is based on the action-adventure game series of the same name, which began in 2002 involving various locations being visited by a member of the "brimstone Society" to deal with supernatural creatures and Nazis. An "unrated" director's cut came out on DVD, incidentally, which apparently came out with a copy of BloodRayne 2 on it (incidentally, the series has had just one game released since the film came out). The next video game movie Boll did for theaters was In the Name of the King (2007). You might recognize that the screenplay was written by Guinevere Turner, who apparently delivered a first draft a few weeks late that Boll went right in to pick and choose what to use immediately (which was apparently 20%) for the actors to apparently take a crack at it. While the movie was a financial failure, Boll would direct two sequels for the direct-to-video market: BloodRayne 2: Deliverance (2007) and BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011), in which only Michael Paré appears in each film of the "trilogy". 

It probably goes without saying that Boll has not managed to achieve anything in the manner of effective entertainment even when having a video game right there for adaptation. In the aim of blood, dirt, and sex, the success rate is about on the same level as an apple becoming a tomato (one interview had him stating it would possibly be two hours but it ended up being 95 minutes long). It certainly never seems sexy even with its attempts at doing so with leather outfits and I kid you not, hiring actual prostitutes to be in a scene (as one does when filming in Europe). The thing about Boll is that he seems to direct things as if it was a blunt instrument to plow through regardless of who is cast or the scenario. He has a lead actress in Loken that might as well be playing T-X from Terminator 3 all over again. He has a movie where one actor called it an "abomination" that still would say yes to being in another Boll movie. The best parts in the whole movie is either Meat Loaf lounging around with prostitutes or the bits and pieces where Madsen seems interested enough to actually make effort (probably the result of liquid courage, but I can think of worse ways to get through a film). It probably is most amusing to see Zane in the film when you have the whole context: Zane liked being with such a "decisive" director even in a small role and he apparently gave Boll the idea to use Romar Entertainment (which Zane was involved with) as a way to handle distribution of the film to a target of 2,000 theaters...only 950 theaters ended up getting the film on opening day and Boll later sued Zane (incidentally, Zane co-starred alongside Loken in Boll's Darfur film, released in 2009). Christian Slater might not be a particularly great actor, but at least him being in the aforementioned Dark film seemed to make sense. But Kingsley? An Academy Award-winning actor wanting to play a vampire deciding to join here? I suppose it must be a British tradition in the Michael Caine sense, but even Caine was better at this, because Kingsley barely delivers actual substance to what is meant to be a villainous role. One sees more effort in the makeup job than from Kingsley, who can't even play to the cheap seats for something funny. The movie is listless and barely seems competent to actually approach what you might call filmmaking. It just feels like a movie patched together, where even a sequence of someone trying to dodge traps (and water, because ooooh, water) has little weight to actually level attention to. The sex scene might actually inspire confusion over how it is staged more than anything, and yet somehow this is a movie that is more tolerable than Bolero (1984), even with all of the godforsaken wigs. As a whole, this is merely just a boring bad flick, not even measuring up to the lesser vampire movies you've probably seen before. It isn't completely incompetent as with some of Boll's previous line of work because it just is blah B-movie stuff that really should not have tried to be anything more. It is dull and goofy in ways that would probably be amusing with a couple of beers for the turkey night, I suppose.

Overall, I give it 2 out of 10 stars.

Resident Evil.

Review #2158: Resident Evil.

Cast: 

Milla Jovovich (Alice), Michelle Rodriguez (Rain Ocampo), Eric Mabius (Matthew "Matt" Addison), James Purefoy (Spence Parks), Martin Crewes (Chad Kaplan), Colin Salmon (James "One" Shade), Ryan McCluskey (Mr. Grey), Oscar Pearce (Mr. Green), Indra Ové (Ms. Black), and Michaela Dicker (Red Queen) Written and Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson(#1670 - Mortal Kombat and #1688 - Alien vs. Predator)

Review: 

"This film is the explanatory prequel that game players have always wanted to see, using the scary mechanisms and devices that have become part of the Resident Evil cyber culture. I felt the idea was the correct approach for both people who had never heard of the game and for the avid players who will get all the references included just for them."

Surprisingly, I had thought about doing this film in each of the last two fall seasons. I thought to myself, hmm, I hear it has zombies, why not think of it? Well, sometimes things just don't go your way (. The source material for the film is what else but a video game (known as Biohazard in Japan and Southeast Asia but Resident Evil everywhere else), as created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara that was created in 1996. Constantin Film purchased the film rights a year after the release of the first game and had a handful of names considered in the development process. Somehow, they went through the process of enlisting script ideas from a line that went from Alan B. McElroy to George A. Romero to Jamie Blanks and said no each time. So... they instead went with a man who apparently wrote a script that was a "ripoff" of the aforementioned Evil game after playing it. Made on a budget of roughly $33 million, the resulting success with audiences led to a slew of sequels in Apocalypse (2004), Extinction (2007), Afterlife (2010), Retribution (2012), and The Final Chapter (2016), for which Jovovich was featured as the one consistent star to go with Anderson being the writer of each one (while directing most of the sequels). 

They wanted to make a movie that wouldn't imitate the game in every detail but instead try to siphon that shock and horror feeling for a film. This is the kind of movie you could probably watch while doing your taxes. Things that barely register as things happen in the film that actually made me wonder how you can read a George A. Romero script, see it as destined for the "NC-17" rating and decide, nay, we must go with Paul W. S. Anderson. I find more urgency in looking for the remote that may or may not be wedged somewhere in the space between the couch and the wall than what happens in this puddle of a movie. I never played the Resident Evil video games, but I can certainly say that it is pretty hard to get me spooked when playing a video game in general...what the hell is different from film-to-video game adaptation? I can't even call this a fun type of B-movie, because it really manages to make 100 minutes feel like a tremendous waste of time in terms of the idea of trying to "shock" me with nonsense. One whole film goes by and I feel like nothing has happened to make one want to see sequels of this, with the "Umbrella Corporation" and their massive interest in dominating the markets and being used for the military just gives me a blank expression. Jovovich seems unsure as to where to really go in terms of "follow the path as the action lead", and it isn't exactly the best compliment when the only noteworthy sequence to highlight is a "flying kick" applied to a effects creature. The rest of the actors seem clinically stuck in second gear, with that bare idea of interest that really makes me wonder if Uwe Boll saw stuff like this and decided that he could do video game movies just like that. Even the scene of folks trying to escape deadly lasers (ones that slice you in the same way one wishes they could slice beef) just seems bland. It is a "5" because it doesn't give me that particular feeling of being just short of mediocrity but instead being shorter than even the too-average things. You really find a feeling of "phone it in" when it comes to thinking about this film, where it is not particularly good in any one consistent territory nor terrible in all of the aspects to really scare someone out. One either goes with the flow and looks further with those other features or they move on with their day and do something else. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Widows (2018).

Review #1166: Widows.

Cast: 
Viola Davis (Veronica Rawlings), Michelle Rodriguez (Linda Perelli), Elizabeth Debicki (Alice Gunner), Cynthia Erivo (Belle), Colin Farrell (Jack Mulligan), Brian Tyree Henry (Jamal Manning), Daniel Kaluuya (Jatemme Manning), Jacki Weaver (Agnieska), Carrie Coon (Amanda Nunn), Robert Duvall (Tom Mulligan), Liam Neeson (Harry Rawlings), and Garret Dillahunt (Bash) Directed by Steve McQueen.

Review: 
I admit that this film came as a surprise on my radar, being something that fell right into the middle of November (right before Thanksgiving) with a bit of buzz but certainly one that probably would've benefited from being released in a different (and less busy) month, although at least it isn't one of those films that fall under limited releases. In any case, I was surprised to hear that Widows is based off a British prime-time television crime drama of the same name (written and created by Lynda La Plante), which aired as a six-part series each in 1983 and 1985 (along with a sequel series named She's Out in 1995). The show was remade previously in 2002, although the main plot dealt with theft of a painting. In any case, the film (with a screenplay from McQueen and Gillian Flynn) takes bits and pieces from the show while mixing in a political aspect (in this case, a robbery during a debate) that certainly make this film seem busy for its 129 minute run-time. Whether or not the film is fine entertainment relies on how much you invest into these characters and its buildup into its heist. For me, I thought the film worked just enough to make for some fine entertainment, having the right amount of capable thrills and a few moments of grimness and character moments to make for a solid winner. Davis pulls in a capable performance, showing strength in regard to what her character must go through with sudden events with a capability that makes her interesting to follow along with, whether when dealing with loss or dealing with having to set up a heist. Rodriguez is fine, but Debicki stands out quite well as the third arm of the heist, being charming and entertaining to follow along with as well. Erivo, the last arm of the team, does pretty fine with her time on screen, not having as much to say but doing her role without too much of a hitch. Farrell is effective in his plot-line, showing charisma alongside ooze in the fiber of his virtues, particularly when played off with his power broker on-screen father in Duvall, who plays his brief time to play it with such rude effectiveness. Henry also showcases his own degree of ambition that plays off fine, particularly when he and Farrell share a scene together involving an election for alderman. Kaluuya plays his ruthless enforcer role fairly effectively. Neeson is decent for his brief time on-screen. It has a fine deal of twists and action sequences that make for some entertaining execution, building up its characters and respective plot with a fair bit of juggling that makes for consistent (if not gradual) enjoyment. The film works better more often than not when dealing with the widows than the parts involving the election, although at least the two parts do feel natural enough to not seem too much like two different movies. I wonder how the film would have gone with a different length - would it have served better with a trim or lengthening in run-time? In any case, the movie serves its purpose of entertainment well with a fairly dynamic cast and a good amount of execution in the right places to make it something worth checking out.

Welcome to December. I meant to have this written prior to my birthday on the 1st, but time had to be spent to make sure that at least one review was done before November ended. Hopefully there will be a good amount of reviews to go around for the final month of the year, which is shaping up to have just as many (if not a bit more than) reviews as the year before.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Avatar (2009).

Review #388: Avatar.

Cast
Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldaña (Neytiri), Stephen Lang (Miles Quaritch), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace Augustine), Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacón), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Joel David Moore (Norm Spellman), and Dileep Rao (Max Patel) Directed by James Cameron (#001 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day, #063 - The Terminator)

Review
When this film was about to come out, I had never heard so much hype before. And keep in mind, it has been four years since the film was released, and I barely just got to reviewing this. So, after all this hype, does it live up to in a satisfactory way? Sort of. It does have good effects at points, which do work to its advantage, but effects aren't everything. The characters...aren't are as good as the effects. The flaw I think is evident in this film is the way the characters are portrayed, which is easily summed up like this: "The hero with a "unknown" secret" to "unlikable brute". There are of course scientists, but the film somewhat follows the Scientist Rule, which means that if you have a scientist in your film, he/she will either be ignored by a important character which proves to be important. While the characters may not have that much depth to them, the actors at least are alright. Maybe it's just me, but my favorite actress in this film is Sigourney Weaver, doing another good job in a film reviewed here. Someone once described this film as "Dances with Smurfs", and after seeing this, I can't argue against that. The film has spectacle, but this film sometimes hammers its message too much, the character sometimes feel a bit generic. Does it have anything good? Sure, but this is not a great film by any means. It's not Star Wars (1977), more of a Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: The Fast and the Furious.

Review #043: The Fast and the Furious.

Cast
Paul Walker (Brian O'Conner), Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Michelle Rodriguez (Leticia "Letty" Ortiz), Jordana Brewster (Mia Toretto), Rick Yune (Johnny Tran), Chad Lindberg (Jesse), Johnny Strong (Leon), Matt Schulze (Vince), and Ted Levine (Tanner) Directed by Rob Cohen.

Review
This film was the first film reviewed on "Movies in Oregon", in which I reviewed films I watched while on vacation in Oregon. Anyway, this film has alright car scenes, with some cool things to help dazzle a bit, like the fashion and music. The acting is decent, with Vin Diesel doing a stand out job, being entertaining to watch, especially his chemistry with Walker. The action is fun, especially near the end, with a riveting scene in the end with the two. Looking back, I was wrong in saying that it lacked discipline; I can't help but be more sympathetic and bump up the rating a star just because of the charisma of the actors, the cars, and the tone.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.