In the great tradition of B movies there’s a subplot of contemporary 'relevance’. Set in ancient Persia, which looks like Lawrence of Arabia crossed with a Christmas pageant designed by Baz Luhrman, most of the action revolves around Dastan, the adopted son of a murdered king and his attempts to clear his name. The stakes are huge if the super villain, Nizam, played with a kind of campy-glee by Ben Kingsley, gets his way, it means nothing less than the end of the world. Basically it’s a wronged-hero chase plot. Prince of Persia seems less like a movie designed to tell a certain story but a laundry list of in-vogue visual licks.īased on the videogame created by Mechner, the story is messy, and complicated and that’s probably why the action so frequently grinds to a halt so characters can take the time to explain what’s going on. In other words the 'free-run’ scene seems an obligatory bit of business these days in action movies it's like the movie's producers Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer were keen to make sure to use all the fashionable action beats. Still, the scene, in which the movies hero, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), has to jump and leap and swing about over roofs and streets, seems so 'seen before’ its hardly any fun at all. As directed by English filmmaker Mike Newell ( Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco) it’s athletic, inventive and even humorous (in the way, say the Indiana Jones films use wit to take the nastiness out of their violent gags). There’s a long 'free-run’ sequence in this mega budget fantasy too and in a way it sums up why the whole movie seems so tired and lifeless. Part of what they were about was the idea that Bourne and Bond were prepared to improvise these guys could use their immediate environment to catch the bad guy instead of relying on a gadget or a gun. Or what about the similar full-tilt chase across the roof tops in the last Bourne film? These were expert cinema action sequences brilliantly attenuated and carefully choreographed. Remember the 'free-run’ action scene in the 2006 Casino Royale? That’s where Bond pursued an elastically limbed baddie through a construction site.
0 Comments
But there's also Alice's vengeance against Isaacs and Umbrella Corp for wiping out humanity so they (and other rich people, I guess) could rebuild the earth in their image. Someone at Umbrella Corp produced an antidote to the T-Virus, which ironically is only known in the last movie, and Alice has to find it and release it before the last of the human settlements (in the U.S or the world or something) is wiped out. As far as to what I thought about this movie, it's watchable at best. And, really, I'm not even saying that she's bad here, but she's much better than what she's allowed to show. Nobody really takes her seriously as an actress and, honestly, it's not fair because Milla is pretty damn good at what she does. The thing about this is that, while Milla Jovovich is Paul's wife, her career has taken a hit as a result of this franchise. That's probably the biggest issue with these movies, outside of them being poorly written and incomprehensible films. That's problematic, but that's what you have to go through when the same guy (Paul W.S Anderson) writes and directs every movie in the franchise. If you were to ask me to give you a detailed rundown of every film in the franchise I would not be able to do so, since I would not know to what movie in the franchise what I'm writing, at the time would belong to. Something about Umbrella and the T-Virus and fighting zombies. All of the films look and feel the same and, thematically, they are very similar. I swear to you that all of these films blend together and there are absolutely no distinguishable differences. From a story perspective, honestly, I have no idea what's going on at any time, in the entirety of the franchise I mean. The thing is, this movie is still, technically speaking, bad. I realize that's not the best way to start a review, but this is where we are and you're just gonna have to deal with it. Having said that and maybe it's because I was in a more forgiving mood given the events of this past week, but this could have been considerably worse. So, while these movies kinda suck, you can see why they keep pumping them out. That means that the worldwide gross was almost ELEVEN times that of the domestic. Case in point, this movie made $26 million domestic and $285 million worldwide. And, honestly, these movies are made for the international markets. But, for horror, not many franchises cross these numbers. So just one movie almost doubled the entirety of the gross by this entire franchise. That's obviously nothing for a film like, say, Infinity War which has grossed something like $2 billion worldwide. The six movies, in total, have gross $1.2 billion worldwide. And, as much as it pains me to say, it has led to this actually being one of the most commercially successful horror franchises of all time, on a worldwide basis at least. But, realistically speaking, an action-horror movie is a better sell than the alternative. I hate that the franchise is more about the generic action than truly compelling and effective horror. So, yes, but the thing is that what works in games might not necessarily work in film. And, from what I understand, it did very well commercially and creatively. The sixth game being such a commercial and creative disappointment forced Capcom to regroup and put out a game that, while considerably different from any RE game out there, felt more in tune with its horror roots. An approach that, outside of RE 4, which was revolutionary for its time and, even then, that game mixed horror and action perfectly, had mixed results with fans. While, until the seventh game which, ironically, came out earlier the same week this movie was released, returned to the franchise's survival-horror roots, the video game franchise was heading towards a more action-heavy approach. But I just never felt that the fact that the movie is so heavy on action with, really, very few elements of horror made for a good combination. So I'm not super hardcore into it, but I know enough to get by. Those are the three that come to mind, main series at least. For those interested, I've played RE 2, 4 and 5. I grew up a gamer and I've played a few of them. Of course I'm familiar with the Resident Evil games. I think it should be obvious, for those who follow my reviews on RottenTomatoes (and, really, why would you?) that I've never been the biggest fan of this film franchise and the last film in the franchise, prior to this one, being eviscerated by yours truly. How this happens I don't know, but it is what it is. They'll keep pumping out these movies, somehow, even after the world have been destroyed and we're all dead and gone. Sort of like how I feel about the Ice Age franchise, as well. Part of me always thought that this franchise would never end. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |