21 September 2010

Resident Evil: Afterlife.



3D movies don’t really work well for me. I’m getting tired of things being shot at my face.
A few issues I had while watching the movie.
1)      Where are all the janitors? In the underground headquarters of Umbrella Corporation, everything sparkling clean. Supposedly, everyone has been living underground for years. Can things look a little dilapidated? All the vehicles are neatly parked and shiny. Awesome. Wesker must have had several hundred janitors stowed away in his underground stronghold. Same goes for the field of planes which have been left in the open for months. In the world of the film, all industries are dead. Alice found no (other) survivors at all during the six month journey from Japan to Alaska to California. Who has been providing Umbrella with electricity? Food? Ammunition? Soap? Toilet Paper? New tires? 
2)       One of my biggest complaints for the movie franchise is that the character of Alice has been given magical powers via the “T-Virus”. Yes, a virus that makes people turn into zombies also gives people super powers such as making a ground shockwave with the mind. I was actually surprised when Wesker took the ability away from Alice. “Thank you for making me Human again.” Oh, if only you still were human. Alice has still shown extra ordinary abilities with her speed and strength. At one point, she was hit with a mallet into a wall (which actually broke the tiles on the wall.) She was out of commission for about a minute (so that Claire can have her action scene), but quickly sprung back into action with apparently no injury. Great job stating that you depowered her only to have her still do inhuman things. Oh yeah, since Alice was on the Chopper the entire time, why didn’t she kill Wesker the moment he started to punch in the code to destroy the Umbrella Facility? Because it serves the plot.
3)      What is Umbrella’s plan anyway? I don’t recall the specific plot for the films, but I believe the T-Virus was made as a bio-weapon. It was accidentally released at the end of the first film. The second film is about the initial spread of the virus at Raccoon City. By the third film, the virus has spread worldwide. Supposedly, they’re interested in studying Alice because they believe that her blood or genetics contain the secret to curing the whole zombie infection… or at least make them dormant. Now, they’re all about making monsters and doing extremely unethical experiments. I wonder what all the survivor security guards and janitors are thinking about all of this. I was hoping that we get to see some director in charge of some facility that isn’t PURE EVIL. Maybe they exist, but Alice killed them all. (There is a short conversation between the characters stating that the crew of the Arcadia was so disgusted at Wesker that they all fled on life rafts. I guess the guys at the prison missed this part with their night vision/heat sensing goggles. And I guess the crew decided to not take the four or so choppers with them and instead try to make it out alive on boats.)
4)      Wesker’s plan made no sense. When we see him on the chopper the first time, it was a little bit ridiculous that he was able to inject Alice so quickly without Alice being able to fire. I guess he knew she was on the chopper all along, because he was holding on to the syringe the entire time. Alright. Neat. He protected himself. I get that. So why would he leave the chopper unpiloted for a minute while he had his confrontation with Alice? I actually thought it was on auto pilot or something. Wesker is dumb. The plane crashes and Alice wakes up first because she is entirely human while Wesker is a super human.

Let’s follow this movie from Wesker’s perspective at this point:



I wake up from the burning wreckage. Dang. That chopper was brand new and sparkly. Now it is all burning and dilapidated. Well, at least I’m still alive and I’m super human.
Oh no. The T-virus isn’t bonding to my body correctly. I need to eat human flesh to stabilize myself.
Where’s Alice? I want to eat her. She is the only known human to fully bond with the virus. Eating her will allow me to become super powerful. Oh. She isn’t here? Darn. She must have woken up before me somehow. Wait a minute, I thought I was the super human here!

Where do I go now? Let’s go to one of Umbrella’s many secret base. It is a ship. It is a ship named Arcadia.

*Six months later*

There’s a plane? Someone’s flying to Arcadia? Who is it? Let’s use the magical Satellite Voice amplifier along with the Umbrella Heat signature finder. If we had this technology all along, why didn’t we use it to capture that Claire girl?
 But, Arcadia is moving south to LA for no reason. Should I tell the crew to stop and wait for Alice to land on the ship so I can eat her? Or at least head back north and send out flares or radio signals to the plane telling her to land? Let’s not.

*A couple of days later*

Oh look, Alice landed at a prison facility along with other survivors.
I most definitely want to consume her, so I’ll send some bio-monsters to go and kill her. Yes, these monsters must be deadly. I hope Alice makes it out alive.

*Another few days later.*

Gee, is that a plane that’s heading to the boat? Does everyone know how to fly a plane? Apparently. Is it Alice? No? Hm.
Wait, that’s Alice and Claire coming on a boat. Alice is coming to this room right now! Let’s talk. And not seal the room via the computer controls so anyone can sneak through at any time. Besides, I like to fight more people while my horribly mutated dogs fight other people.
Muahaha. Look at their slow bullets fly. I can move so fast. I am powerful. Now, the Redfields are out of commission.
Should I use my super speed (fast enough to dodge bullets) to knock Alice out and finally eat her? Nope.
Let’s slow motion try to eat her. Ow! There’s a knife in my brain. Good thing I can recover from that! Let’s try again. Hopefully, Alice doesn’t have another weapon that can be shot in my face. 
Darn, I guessed wrong. She did shoot it in my face. I am going to fake die. 
Muahaha I am alive again, and I’m going to eat this old man to regain my complete strength. Since I’ve proven that I am too dumb to even kill three ‘normal’ powered humans, I’m going to escape. I hope that the one chopper out of a dozen or so isn’t booby trapped by Alice’s only self destruct device. 
Bah. I am now dead. Darnit. I was so dumb and unlucky.

So what is Wesker’s goal? It is apparent that he doesn’t care about the Company Directive anymore. He just wants to become a super-being of sorts. Having a character seek out power for the sake of seeking power is pointless. With the way he does things, there will be no human left alive? What’s the point of being all powerful when you’re the only one alive?


That’s not to say I hated the film entirely. I loved seeing Wentworth Miller (who played Michael Scofield in Prison Break) trapped in a prison within a prison, trying to break out. I found it to be hilarious. The end of the film had a teaser for the next installment of the franchise. Jill Valentine is now apparently controlled by Umbrella, and they’re flying towards the Arcadia to capture some people for experiments. I’m guessing that these people are controlled by an AI like the White Queen. (People at theatres are retarded. They just have this urge to head out as soon as the credits roll. THE LIGHTS ARE NOT ON YET. IT MEANS THAT THE PRESENTATION IS NOT OVER. I love it when the scene continues and people who are on their way out turns around to watch it.)
Ultimately, is the film worth watching? I think so. Just expect that characters will do dumb things. The film isn’t worth paying full price.  It is probably better than spending time watching old episodes of Star Trek though.

03 September 2010

Going to Pax.

So long, suckers!

Girl who Leapt Through Time. 2006.


Japanese Animated Film.

Spoilers in review.

This movie is set in contemporary modern day Japan about a girl (Makato) who... leaps through time. That is, she finds out that she is able to literally jump and travel through time. Like any adolescent, Makato starts by changing minor things so that they work out better. Suddenly, she is able to have all the extra sleep that she wants. She gets perfect grades. Eventually, she uses this power to avoid some decisions in life. One of her best friends (Chiaki) wanted to ask her out on a date. Makato couldn't handlethis so she goes back in time to avoid the whole 'asking her out' part from ever happening. She uses this power to avoid facing any major changes to her life.

Anyway, it turns out that there are consequences to her time-leaps and that there's a finite amount. Blah blah blah. Saw it coming a mile away.

There's a serious flaw to this story which was very distracting to me. The way that 'time' works does not make sense at all. In the original timeline, Makato has a tempura (fire) accident during cooking class. The brakes on her bike is also broken, which eventually led to a fatal accident...which was undone by her first, accidental time-leap.
To solve the tempura problem, she asks another student to fry it first. He became the one who accidentally causes the fire. This shows that certain events 'must' happen. Later in the movie, Makato's other friend started riding a bike which lead to another fatal accident. Yeah. People need to ride their bikes more carefully.

By the last act of the film, it turns out that Makato gained her timeleaping ability because she accidentally fell a time-nut, which grants the user power over time. I'm not even kidding about this. The time-nut was originally lost by the time-traveller-Chiaki, who is desperately trying to find it. Chiaki only came to the past to see a famous painting which was destroyed in the upcoming world-wide catastrophe. Unfortunately, the painting is still being restored, so he hasn't had a chance to see it yet. And he never will have that chance because he must disappear. He can't go back to the future because he used his last time-leap to save Makato's other friend from a fatal bike accident. He disappears and Makato is a sad panda.

Later, Makato finds out that she has one time-leap left because Chiaki went back in time before she used her time leap. WHY DOES SHE STILL REMEMBER THE OTHER TIMELINE IF SHE NEVER HAD THE CHANCE TO USE HER LAST TIME-LEAP? PLOT HOLE. To help Chiaki go back to the future, she time-leaps before he used his last time-leap so that he still has one more to go to the future.

Some sappiness occurs where the girl and the guy reveals that they love each other, etc..

And then the most retarded thing happens.

Chiaki still goes home, but he says that he'll wait for her in the future.

Makato is alright with this, and she replies that she'll be 'running towards it'.

What does Chiaki mean by he'll wait for her? It'll only appear to be a second to him when he travels. Makato will be much, much older in the future.

Also, Makato only finds out in this film that she kinda loves Chiaki. Now she'll remain single her entire life for an unspecified point in the future when they'll meat? This shit is retarded.