Movie Review: Death Race

Death Race (2008) 

Directed by Paul W.S Anderson 

Written by Paul W.S Anderson 

Starring Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane

Release Date August 22nd, 2008

Published August 22nd, 2008

The description of Roger Corman's 1975 cult classic reads like a description of the latest Grand Theft Auto-style videogame. Racing across the country in souped up death cars, drivers in the death race get points not merely for winning but for killing opponents and pedestrians alike. Points are assigned for killing particular types of pedestrians such as old people or children.

A controversial premise back in 1975 becomes something only eye brow raising today thanks to the rise of the first person killer videogame. Why then did writer-director Paul W.S Anderson abandon the gimmick for his modern Death Race remake? Who knows.

In the new Death Race Jason Statham stars as Jensen Aimes, a former Nascar driver convicted of murdering his wife. The reality is that Aimes was framed for his wife's murder by Hennessey (Joan Allen) who needed him in her prison to drive in the ratings champion Death Race. Her former top draw Frankenstein has died and ratings have been dropping ever since.

However, after hiding Frank's death from the public and helped by the fact that he wore a mask, Hennessey plans on subbing Jensen for for Frank. The Death Race features some of the most violent and disturbed men in the world including the multiple murder convict Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) and the man who actually killed Aimes' wife, Ulrich (Jason Clarke), driving cars equipped with weapons. The goal, win the race and kill your fellow racers. Win five races in a row and you win your freedom.

The plot construct of Paul W.S Anderson drives wildly off course from the Corman original. The future setting of this death race for some reason includes giant prison colonies, corporate run prisons and other such unnecessary nonsense. The race itself is an whole other kind of nonsense. It's called Death Race yet racers have survived race after race so well that each of the 8 to 10 racers has their own history and fanbase.

Then Jensen joins and suddenly racers are dying left and right. Half way through this death race Hennessy introduces a new danger, a giant truck filled with her henchman that begins killing racers. She seems to have instructed it to kill everyone but then there wouldn't be any more death racers and their is half a race left?

Now, I realize I am injected logic where none is welcome, this is after all a supremely dumb action flick and not some high minded drama. But, when the action is as lame as that of Death Race, I am left only to my logical mind to survive such tripe. Pulling apart the ludicrous nature of Paul W.S Anderson's script just gives me something to do while I wait for the movie to be over.

Aside from his good work in The Bank Job, Jason Statham's act has gotten supremely tired. The Transporter movies, Crank, War, Statham is playing the same character over and over and over again, varying only the character name. Sure, sometimes, as in War, he speaks with a slightly more clipped pace, but otherwise it's no different.

His Jensen Aimes is merely his Transporter sent to prison. Writers and directors may as well start naming his character Jason Statham just to make things as simple as possible for the action star. Even the sense of humor he developed working with pal Guy Richie on Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch has devolved into a tired, unfunny, deadpan.

Death Race never set out to be anything more than a cheap, second rate, z-movie. Roger Corman was even kind enough to add his imprimatur just to make sure you didn't expect to much quality from this enterprise. But, most of the credit for the crappiness of Death Race falls on Paul W.S Anderson who adds to his resume of debacles from Resident Evil to Alien Vs Predator, another stupidly violent, mind numbingly idiotic, action flick.

Movie Review Resident Evil Afterlife 3D

Resident Evil Afterlife (2010) 

Directed by Paul W.S Anderson

Written by Paul W.S Anderson 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Wentworth Miller, Boris Kodjoe

Release Date September 10th, 2010 

Published September 10th, 2010 

The idea behind each of the “Resident Evil” films is watching Milla Jovovich in states of undress or in exceptionally tight fitting outfits. Jovovich is a walking fetish for director Paul W.S Anderson and a legion of geek fans who flock even to the shoddiest made films to see the object of their lust.

Now, Milla Jovavich in tight leather and in 3D threatens to make going to see “Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D” something akin to attending a porn film with greasy, glassy eyed geeks under giant coats ducking low so what they're doing cannot be seen. Sure, there are zombies and guns, but if you can’t figure the true interest of the “Resident Evil” creators and fans, consider yourself naïve but also kind of lucky. I wish I didn’t know.

In this 3rd or 4th or who the hell cares numbered sequel in the video game to movie franchise, Alice (Jovovich) is in Japan seeking the headquarters of the evil umbrella corporation. They are the ones who invented the T-Virus that has turned most of humanity into flesh eating zombies while turning Alice superhuman.

Yes, Alice is infected by the T Virus but something makes her immune and adaptive and superhuman, thus she is perfect to take on an entire army of faceless corporate mercenaries. Oh, but Alice is not alone, in a move that will no doubt please the geeks in most disturbing fashion, Alice has been cloned and several of her are on the attack in tight leather jumpsuits.

That's just the opening minutes, once we've been whittled down to just the original Alice, we get to the much more dull story of Alice's travel to Alaska seeking her former friends and the search for a place called Arcadia that claims to be a disease free paradise filled with survivors and supplies.

Soon, Alice is reunited with Claire (fellow fetish object Ali Larter) and though Claire has lost her memory, they soon are traveling to Los Angeles searching for Arcadia and more survivors. The few they find are hiding in a giant prison surrounded by the undead. Boris Kodjoe and Wentworth Miller lead a ragtag bunch of cannon fodder destined to die horribly for our amusement.

The best of the supporting cast is not one of the survivors but rather a reject from another movie, a zombie giant with an ax/hammer he intends to use to crush all non-zombies. Where did this freak come from? Why is he killing survivors and not crushing zombies? Who knows, he makes for a cool visual and a strong foe for Alice and that's all that matters.

Sadly, the zombie giant ax/hammer guy, who looks like he wandered over from the unmade sequel to Silent Hill, is not the big bad in Resident Evil Afterlife. He's barely a foe at all, dispatched in a single scene with barely a fight. I wasn't rooting for the bad guy but he was the most interesting looking thing in the film, not counting Ms. Jovovich, and the film definitely loses something after his scene ends.

Don't let me overstate, the giant ax/hammer zombie dude is certainly not enough to recommend the dull slog of zombie goofiness that is “Resident Evil Afterlife.” There is no doubt that Milla Jovavich is completely gorgeous and looks amazing but this type of puerile interest cannot sustain interest in a full length feature and is really better suited to the privacy of home viewing, even without the 3D.

Movie Review Resident Evil Apocalypse

Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004) 

Directed by Alexander Witt

Written by Paul W.S Andersn 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Jared Harris, Mike Epps

Release Date September 10th, 2004

Published September 12th, 2004 

As bad as the first Resident Evil film was, written and directed by Paul W.S Anderson (ugh), could the sequel be any worse? Paul W.S Anderson stepping aside as director was a good first step, as is a script and story more faithful to its videogame source material. However first time director Alexander Witt, who's assistant director resume includes Speed 2, XXX and The Postman seems uninterested in improving on the original, unless you call being bigger, dumber and louder an improvement.

We begin where the last film left off. Our heroine Alice (Milla Jovovich) has just escaped from the Umbrella Corporation's evil underground lab The Hive, where she spent the previous night fighting the undead. Temporarily captured by Umbrella's evil scientists for a quick genetic upgrade, Alice finds herself in the chaotic remains of Racoon City, which has been overrun by zombies.

With most of the once peaceful town infected, and the evil Umbrella scientists having closed the only way out of town, Alice must team with the remaining survivors to fight the zombies and find a way out. With Alice are former cop Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), armed forces specialist Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), former pimp L.J (Mike Epps) and a small band of cannon fodder who are picked off in rather predictable fashion.

As the survivors battle the zombies, the chance to escape comes from a former Umbrella scientist Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris). The good doctor will get them a helicopter if they will go to the town’s only school and retrieve his young daughter Angie (Sophie Vasseur). Standing in their way are an assortment of zombie children and a return of those feral organs-on-the-outside Dobermans from the first film.

Let's start with some good things like star Milla Jovovich who, though she has limited range as an actress, is amazingly hot and has a terrific physical presence. She's agile and good with a gun and a believable action heroine. In a better action movie she could be quite effective, but in the midst of this film’s mindlessness she's reduced to repeating herself into tedium.

The supporting cast of Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr and Mike Epps don't have much time to make an impression in between all of the explosions, zombie bites and gunfire. Epps at least has a couple of humorous moments that he is well suited to deliver. The film could have used a little more of Epps' humor but that would require a far better script.

We cannot be surprised that a script this witless and banal was written by the master of witless banality, Paul W.S Anderson. Every line of dialogue, every moment of exposition is just killing time till the next explosion of big, dumb, loud violence. This can work if you have the slightest bit of wit or sense of irony but Anderson has none. Director Alexander Witt doesn't have any either. His visuals consist of properly framing for the explosion and.... well, that's it.

This plot is at the very least more closely related to the popular video game, a fact that might appeal to fans of the game but is of little comfort to non-fans. Compared to the first film, this Resident Evil manages to be bigger, dumber and louder than the original and that is certainly not an improvement. On the bright side it's still a better video game based movie than Tomb Raider.

Movie Review Resident Evil

Resident Evil (2002) 

Directed by Paul W.S Anderson

Written by Paul W.S Anderson 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, 

Release Date March 15th, 2002 

Published March 15th, 2002 

I hate science fiction!

If it's not Star Wars or Star Trek: Next Generation, it's almost guaranteed I'm going to hate it. So you're probably wondering why I would subject myself to the Sci-fi schlock of Resident Evil. Maybe I'm a movie masochist. Or maybe I'm open-minded enough to see a film before I judge it. Or maybe I heard Milla Jovavich gets naked and I'm just a perv.

Resident Evil is the latest video game-to-movie adaptation, a combination that has yet to yield a solid effort. It's the oh so original story of an evil, futuristic corporation that develops evil biological weapons because they are a corporation and they are evil. After a break-in leads to a biological weapon being deployed in the evil corporation's evil underground lab, killing thousands of employees, the company's evil supercomputer locks down the facility. The company then sends in their crack security team to investigate. Well, investigate or just blow stuff up and die weird painful deaths, it's all in how you look at it.

That leaves our heroine Milla Jovavich to fight the evil supercomputer which is a combination of Hal from 2001 and the little girl from Poltergeist. She's not just fighting the computer though; there are also the zombified corpses of the evil corporation's former employees.

All of which makes Resident Evil a weird amalgamation of George Romero's Living Dead and every bad science fiction movie of the last 4 years from Hollow Man to Ghosts Of Mars. The most egregious are the direct lift from Ghosts of Mars. I kid you not, Resident Evil lifts an entire scene directly from Ghosts.

Milla Jovovich is a talented actress and she does all she can with the material she is given. The same goes for her co-star, Girlfight's Michele Rodriguez, who hits all the tough girl poses that in a better film might make her a viable choice for an action leading lady.

Resident Evil isn't the worst video game adaptation, that title still belongs to Super Mario Bros. and Tomb Raider. That's about the nicest thing I can say about Resident Evil.