Doc Rotten's Movie Monsters of 2010: The Executioner from Resident Evil: Afterlife

For each weekday throughout December, Doc Rotten will be looking back at 2010 examining 20 Movie Monsters of the year. Check back each day and rate how successful the monster worked on the big screen, DVD or BluRay. On December 31, we'll look at all 20 Monsters in order of their popularity. Let's take a look at today's Movie Monster of 2010.

Paul W. S. Anderson returns to the Resident Evil franchise, again with Milla Jovovich staring as Alice, with the 3D sci-fi horror zombie extravaganza Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D. In the film a small band of survivors trapped inside a prison, including Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Spencer Locke, Boris Kodjoe, and Wentworth Miller, come face to face with the mysterious giant zombie known as The Executioner. Taken from the video game Resident Evil 5, The Executioner, played by Ray Olubowale stumbles into L.A. and makes his way past the horde of zombies surrounding the prison safe house and begins to pound down the front gate as the survivors frantically search for another exit. Not long after he successfully breaks through the barrier, The Executioner faces Alice and Claire in a tour-de-force slow motion 3D battle.

Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (2010)

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (2010)

Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Spencer Locke, Boris Kodjoe, Wentworth Miller and Sienna Guillory.

“She’s back…And she’s bringing a few of her friends”

As Resident Evil begins, the series heroine, Alice (Milla Jovovich), strikes at the Umbrella Corporation hidden Japanese underground headquarters. She encounters Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), the ruthless and superhuman base leader. Alice walks away from the attack thinking she’s finished off the Umbrella Corporation once and for all. She then sets out to regroup with her friends who are racing to find a group of survivors at a secret location called Arcadia. When she catches up with the group in Alaska, she finds only Claire Redfield who has lost her memory. The pair set out to search the Western United States seaboard for any survivors and find a small band hiding out in a prison in Los Angeles. They too have heard of Arcadia. Banding together, they attempt to escape the zombie infested city and find safety with Arcadia.

What a glorious piece of cinema dreck! For a movie about the zombie apocalypse, there sure aren’t a whole lot of zombies in Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D from writer director Paul W.S. Anderson (although some have said there are more zombies in this edition than each of the previous three). There’s a whole lot of Matrix (1999) style rip-off slow motion goodness abound however. Even “bullet-time” makes an appearance or two and the antagonist sounds and dresses like Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith. When the vampires do make an appearance, they look suspiciously like the vampires from Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade II (2002). And there’s the addition of Axeman who more than resembles the Pyramid Head character from Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill (2006). And the heroes spend a significant amount of time hiding out in a prison fortress much like the graphic novel The Walking Dead. The fourth installment of the Resident Evil franchise is guilty of a lot of things; however, originality is not one of them.

 One thing Paul W.S. Anderson did add to the series is 3D, and he did it right. Using the same cameras as used in James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), Anderson brings Alice, Claire and the rest to life in amazing 3D cinematography. He spends a fair amount of time exploring how the newest 3D technology works. There are beautiful, lush scenes of Alice’s plan flying over Alaskan terrain that are a wonder to behold. The film has rich depth to it and the sets snap and sizzle. There’s a scene where the heroes are escaping the prison stronghold through tunnels dug beneath the foundation that provide both depth and claustrophobia. When the action begins, guns stick out of the screen, glass, bullets and debris fly in the audience’s face and water drips and rains across the screen. Much of the action is in slow motion, which some may find more annoying than appealing; however, the slow motion allows him to bring the depth and foreground into the fray and, generally, it works in the narrative’s favor. In the case of Resident Evil: Afterlife, the 3D helps the film snap, it draws the audience into the scenery and it thrills the audience with 3D spectacle.

While the 3D technique helps the script, the script itself is thin, weak and uninvolving. Much of the plot doesn’t make much sense. Details are introduced and never expanded on, explained or properly utilized in any way. Early on, Wesker removes much of Alice’s “powers” however that doesn’t stop her from surviving a head-on airplane collision with the side of a mountain, jumping fearlessly off the top of a multi-storied building and surviving the mighty blows of the towering Axeman. When Alice discovers Clair in Alaska, she is being controlled by a mysterious spider-shaped trinket. It gets removed and that’s it. Out of nowhere, the Axeman shows up dragging his axe across the city streets heading toward Alice and the gang.  While he is a visually awesome character and provides the middle act with a much needed antagonist, his purpose is just that and he is given no explanation. Character constantly act and react to move the plot forward and never in character or with realistic motive. Really, it’s all about Alice.

Thankfully, there’s enough action, creative set pieces, interesting creatures and 3D goodness to keep the film afloat and lively. It’s a fun film regardless of it many faults. Resident Evil: Afterlife is a difficult film to rate. When looked at with critical eyes, it’s a bad film with sharp window dressing; however, that window dressing proves to be engaging and exciting enabling a more relaxed sensibility to have a great time at the theater.

6 out of 10

Piranha 3-D

Piranha 3D (2010)

Directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames, Elisabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd ,Eli Roth, Jerry O'Connell, Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Adam Scott, Ricardo Chavira, Dina Meyer and Paul Scheer.

Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D is everything every SyFy creature feature wants to be, strives to be, would kill to be, an over-the-top, gore filled, expertly filmed, b-movie monster-fest. The film is filled with great cameo appearances, some of the best gore-mayhem the theater has seen in years, and it even successfully brings back the T&A factor in a big way. It is a wonder this movie made it to the theater in this day and age, probably due in part to the contrast is holds against the current wave of torture-porn mutilation gore. In that respect, it’s almost refreshing.

The plot is as bare as Riley Steele’s wardrobe, as 50,000 plus students descend upon Lake Victoria during spring break, an earthquake opens a fissure underneath the lake unleashing prehistoric (and hungry!) piranha into the fresh waters. Sheriff Elisabeth Shue and Deputy Ving Rhames must save the uncooperative party animals from becoming lunch, while her son, Steven R. McQueen, leads Jerry O’Connell and his film team into troubled waters. Let the carnage begin; some people survive, some don’t.

None of the actors are given too much to work with and, surprisingly, each is given a fair amount of screen time. Steven R. McQueen, as Jake, is at the center of the story, as he guides Wild Wild Girls producer and filmmaker Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell) to remote areas of the lake. Thankfully, Jake isn’t as annoying as many of the “teen” characters in recent horror flicks; he’s appropriately goofy, devious, charming and heroic in a unusually balanced manner. Elisabeth Shue plays his mother, Julie, the Sheriff of Victoria Lake and she plays the role with confidence and authority. As Derrick Jones, O’Connell gets the best role, a role that requires him to be larger than life. He becomes the highlight of the show being the closest thing to a antagonist the film has, beside the fish. He’s vulgar, obnoxious, manipulative and driven. Ving Rhames as Deputy Fallon, Adam Scott as Novak and Paul Sheer as Andrew all give fine supporting performances. And, of course, there’s the girls; Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook and Riley Steele are all good in the limited roles they are each given. Szohr plays Jake’s love interest, the “innocent” of the group. Kelly Brook and Riley Steele are two of Jone’s Wild Wild Girls and are beautiful piranha bait.

 One of the best things about Piranha 3D are the cameo roles played by Richard Dreyfuss and Christopher Lloyd. In the preface, Dreyfuss all but reprises his Matt Hopper role from Jaws, dressed in similar attire and singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” as the earthquake strikes, freeing the hungry fish. Christopher Llyod plays a local aquatic specialist who realizes what the fish are and provides with great relish what little background is needed to establish their motive, hunger and feeding patterns. And Eli Roth plays a DJ announcing a wet t-shirt contest and awarded one of the films more punishing death scenes. Each is on screen for a short, but highly entertaining, time and are most likely to be more memorable characters from the picture.

 But this is a monster film, a nature gone mad fright flick and the piranha are the stars. The CGI effects for the fish are top notch and effective. They’re creepy and disgusting, and just believable enough to buy into. If they had been silly, the whole picture would have sunk, but they work and they’re fun to watch as attack, terrorize and devour their victims. What they leave behind is as gory a scene as you’ll ever see in US theaters. Arms and legs (and more!) are eaten away. Bodies are stripped to the bone and ripped to shreds. Floating body parts are gobbled up as they drift away from the carnage on the surface. Aja and the special effects team celebrate the art of 80s gore cinema.

While not the perfect film, and could be considered as a brilliant success, the 3D is a huge disappointment. There are a number of scenes where the intent shines through and the 3D really works, for example many of the underwater swimming scenes and anytime someone or something is in the shot alone; however, most of the rest of the film never benefits from either coming out at you or field of depth. A film like this should really present itself with an abundance of opportunities to capitalize on the effect (or gimmick) itself and Piranha 3D just does not.

Thankfully, though, Piranha 3D does not need the 3D to be the romp that it is. It’s a summer horror action hybrid, a SyFy monster mash gone wild. It’s fun, light and unpretentious. Aja knew the kind of film he was making and he made one of the best b-movies to come to the theaters in some time.

7.5 out of 10

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (2010) Trailer 2

Here's hoping the upcoming horror-scifi-action flick Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D is as big a riot as the trailers have been promising. I'm game for seeing Mila Jovovich running around in 3D; in fact, the more the merrier. Add in Ali Larter and a Silent-Hill-influenced monster with a huge anvil-axe of some sort and sign me up. This has guilty pleasure written all over it. It can't possibly be "good" but it certainly will be "fun"!