By Sam Christopher

Rating: ½ out of 5 Stars

I remember watching an interview with Dennis Hopper—I think it was on Tom Snyder’s MSNBC show—about Waterworld. The problem Hopper had was that it seemed to him that everyone outside the production he heard talking about the film seemed to be hoping it would fail. It was one thing to see a picture and not like, but to want someone’s work to be below par seemed wrong to him. I agree with him. I know in the past some readers have complained that I was hard on certain films but it was only after I had seen them. I give breaks on effects and acting talent for films made on thin budgets but I just don’t think money has much to do with the creativity of the writer(s) and director(s) (although I do understand that producers can often meddle so much as to damage the final product). I try and look forward to seeing the films I’m going to review, even when the trailers and/or commercials aren’t too thrilling. Which was not at all the case with this film, as the commercials and online trailers I saw made it look very good. That plus the fact that it was the top box office attraction this past weekend and I had heard nothing bad about it (from the only one person I know that saw it, an admittedly small sample) made me feel pretty hopeful about seeing it. But then…

First, there was the trailers before the picture, an utterly forgettable montage of images that only served to make me ever so glad I own a television. The only ones I can remember anything at all about are: The Cabin in the Woods, which doesn’t look very good to be honest but is being produced by Joss Whedon, so maybe it’ll work out; the new GI Joe picture, in which a US President apparently tells the entire world at a press conference that he dispatched a gang of assassins to murder America’s elite fighting force (yeah, that guy will be re-elected); and then there was one that starred actual Navy SEALs doing… something (I think they were trying to save some CIA operative but I’m not really sure). And I just remembered there was something made by the people who did Borat and it looks awful. Then our main feature started and no one in the audience suspected that the trailers would come to be viewed as the highlight of the evening.

The film starts off very well. Shot in cinema verite, it creates an interesting situation with a triple homicide apparently committed during an exorcism and subsequently follows the efforts of the murderer’s daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), to speak to her mother (the murderer). Then the film shows us a couple of priests who will no doubt eventually be “drummed off the force for playing by their own rules” and then runs us through various hoops and flashes various mcguffins at us for the remainder of the film. Basically, this is a cross between The Exorcist (minus the truly scary portions, the fine acting, and the literate script) and Fallen (minus the star power of Denzel Washington). And the ending… I can’t think of a worse one. I mean, I’ve seen some bad endings but I honestly think this one might be the absolute worst; it is truly Night of the Zombies bad.

Now I know I haven’t said much about the actual story but that’s because I quite frankly can think of nothing that garners interest, other than the beginning. The rest is mostly just a mish-mash of events that never really gel into a horror story. This happens, that happens, and then the end comes and the viewer is left wondering what the hell just happened. And who do I see to get back that last hour and a half of my life?

By John J. Joex

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

This movie gives us a Scream-type send-up of hillbilly-killer horror movies along the line of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Its central characters, Tucker and Dale (played by genre favorites Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine respectively), are two good-natured redneck-types (we never find out too much about their true origins and whether they really are hillbillies or just look the part) who head out into the backwoods to a run-down cabin they recently purchased with the intent of fixing it up as a vacation home. As it turns out, a group of college frat-kids are camping out in the woods nearby and a series of misadventures leads to one of the girls injuring herself followed by Tucker and Dale taking her back to their cabin to administer first aid. Of course her friends get the wrong idea and attempt to save her, but in the process they end up accidentally killing themselves one by one and the body count (and miscommunications) start to pile up.

This feather-thin premise may seem more appropriate to a Saturday Night Live skit and the film’s rather spoilery trailer did give away much of the movie, but Tucker and Dale vs. Evil manages to just barely justify its ninety minute run time and has a few twists in its back pocket to throw at its audience. It approaches its material with a wry wink and a good heart and makes the right choice of turning its title characters into two good-natured buffoons. Sort of like backwoods versions of Abbot and Costello (anybody remember them?) thrown into a slasher-movie spoof. And this film succeeds (as expected) because Tudyk and Labine carry it with their delightfully manic performances (overshadowing the mostly clichéd characterizations delivered by the younger cast members) with Labine getting the meatier role of the two leads.

Still, there’s only so much you can do with the premise and the film stretches that to its limit, eventually feeling a bit long for its rather brisk running time. And the Dale and Alley side-story has an annoying sitcom feel to it that would have worked better if they had approached it with more of a self-mocking tone. This is one of those movies best seen with a group of people as the social element will enhance the movie experience. Unfortunately, the film only received limited release in theaters this past weekend, making it to a handful of midnight movie showings and a few other venues as well.  If it’s not playing near you, then you can watch it on VOD through Amazon.com, VUDU, and other streaming services. Just make sure you get together a group of friends to watch with you, as you will enjoy it more that way.  And don’t fret too much if you don’t get a chance to see this one in the theaters now, because I can definitely see it becoming midnight movie cult hit before too long.

Watch Tucker and Dale vs. Evil on Amazon Instant Streaming or Pre-Order the DVD:

By John J. Joex

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

This past weekend while sifting through the rather sparse selection of science fiction and fantasy movies that Netflix has available for instant viewing (in their defense, they do have a rather hefty selection of genre television shows) I stumbled across the B-Movie gem It! The Terror from Beyond Space. For those not familiar with this one, it came out in 1958 and chronicles the consequences of a failed mission to Mars. The first manned rocket crash-landed there, and only the commander survived, claiming that he and his crew were attacked by some sort of creature. A second ship arrives and takes the commander back with them, where Earth authorities plan to Court Martial him, but the creature boards the ship before it leaves Mars and begins to kill off the ship’s crew members one by one.

Of course that plot summary will certainly ring some bells for many genre fans as this movie provides us the basic template for movies like Alien and other films giving us some sort of creature running amok on a ship and picking off the crew (and 1951’s Thing From Another World was the precursor to It!, though that earlier film was not confined to a spaceship). It seems I recall that Dan O’Bannon denies that It! acted as the inspiration to Alien (he claimed he wanted to do a darker version of the alien beach ball sequence from his own Dark Star), but it undeniably has strong structural similarities and you can see where it has been imitated (unintentionally or not) many times since in genre films.

Apart from its influence and significance in film history, It! is a good, if not spectacular, piece of science fiction film-making. As with many genre films from that time, especially those featuring a monster of some sort, it is a B-Movie through and through. The special effects are rather cheesy, though judiciously used, and the monster himself probably ranks as one of the worst from the more notable 50′s genre films, giving us one of the least memorable of the rubber costume, Halloween mask baddies of that era (quick check: can you even picture this monster in your head if you have not seen the movie in the past year or so?). But surprisingly, despite its production limitations, It! delivers a halfway decent science fiction tale. The script came from Jerome Bixby who penned many science fiction short stories and also contributed several episodes to The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and several other genre TV shows (and he also wrote the script to one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies The Man from Earth). The movie handles space travel rather intelligently for the time and also gives a plausible explanation for the monster and why it’s such a vicious killer (though not necessarily for why it is so indestructible). On the down side, the acting is nominal, though not bad for a 50’s B-Movie, and the directing and pacing is plodding and slow. But for those like me who love cheesy old sci fi films like this, it’s worth catching.

I’m sure I saw this as a kid because I devoured this sort of thing in my younger years, but it did not stick in my brain so it must not have been part of the regular rotation on the old UHF channels like Them! and The Thing and Day the Earth Stood Still were. But as B-Movies go, I would rank this rather highly compared to its ilk, maybe 4 or 4 ½ out of 5 stars. The rating at the top of this review is how it compares in general to other genre films.

Don’t go into It! expecting classic science fiction, and you won’t be disappointed. Just look at it as a gem among B-Movies and early sci fi cheapies and you will better appreciate its merits. This one has not received the same attention as the better examples of sci fi film-making from the same era, but it’s still worth checking out.  And it only runs 69 minutes, so it won’t take too much of you time to watch if. It you already have Netflix streaming, then get it in your queue for when you have an hour to spare and want to revisit an enjoyable little genre film from an age past.

But It! The Terror From Beyond Space and Other 50′s Sci Fi Classics from Amazon.com:

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

I had to think about this one for a little bit. I thought the idea was intriguing from the very first mention despite the bad taste left in my mouth after the 2001 debacle that was Tim Burton’s “reimagining” of the original PotA. I then saw the first trailer and was less than pleased. I saw an awful lot of scenes of guys walking around in lab coats yelling at each other and talking about money and prestige, not very many scenes of apes rising to do anything. But then there were the new trailers, in which the apes were doing everything. These sequences were what got me excited about the picture again. I knew full well the whole time I was going to see it (just as I’m going to see Pitt’s World War Z despite all the bad press it’s gotten lately). I own everything you can get PotA-related on DVD, sans the ’01 remake; it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll watch any new film at least once. So I did. But then I had to think about it.

First, there is some lab stuff here, although it looks now as though the first trailer just showed all of that. The whole story revolves around the lab work but we don’t really see much of it—thankfully. What we see mostly is a son’s love for his father and a father’s love for his “son”. James Franco’s characterization of Will Rodman, the geneticist who is trying to breed a virus that will cure Alzheimer’s, is excellent, and John Lithgow as Rodman’s father with Alzheimer’s is perfect as usual. But the star here, of course, is Andy Serkis as Caesar, the preternaturally intelligent chimpanzee who is born from the chimp who best responds to Rodman’s virus (named “Bright Eyes” in one of several nods to the original series). Caesar is taken in by Rodman when the rest of the specimens are ordered to be destroyed and grows up knowing only love from his human caregivers; he is never treated as a pet. But one thing leads to another and Caesar is taken by the state for the “crime” of protecting a man he sees as his grandfather from a boorish neighbor. He is placed with other apes… and thereby hangs a tale. I only add here that I was surprised to see this film not shot in 3-D, given the action sequences. It doesn’t bother me that it wasn’t, just a surprise.

I will close with two things. SPOILER ALERT: First, I read a review that said the only thing that really shows the apes “rising” to take over for Man as the preeminent species on the planet really happens in the closing credits and that may be true. I would like to say the advent of Caesar along with his “progeny” signals that Man’s day is coming to an end, as we are shown several times that the other apes do not share Caesar’s respect for Man as a lifeform. But the truth is that Man’s numbers and technology would be very difficult for any emergent species to overcome without equivalent numbers and equal technology. The scene in the end shows us part of that equation coming to pass. Frankly, it is this scene that sets up any true sequel; without it, I’m pretty certain Caesar’s troops could not survive in any pitched battle with humanity as a whole. More than that, it also makes the world of Pierre Boulle’s novel as plausible as the ruined world astronaut Taylor finds in the original PotA movie.

The second thing is that I know several people who refused to see this new film because of their love for the original series, and because of the complete disaster that was the ’01 remake. To them I would say to give this one a chance. It is much better than one might think. A very interesting take on this well-trod path and well worth the time of any sf fan.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”- H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, like his contemporary Robert Ervin Howard, is a member of that vanishingly small subsection of writers who have become ingrained in our cultural consciousness almost without our really knowing anything about their lives and, in some cases, even their actual works. Almost everyone, for instance, has heard of Cthulhu, just as virtually everyone has at least heard of Conan the Barbarian. Many people don’t realize how truly Lovecraftian certain mass market enterprises are, such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and even The Blair Witch Project (1999) in its own way. Many people, as mentioned in this documentary, play the games associated with Lovecraft’s works—The Call of Cthulhu, etc.—or even see films such as Re-Animator and From Beyond without knowing anything of their source material. I’ve read many of Lovecraft’s tales and more than a few later works based on his mythologies but, as with the aforementioned REH, I really knew nothing of his life and personality until watching this film. I had read criticisms of his “racism” and “old world philosophies” here and there, and while I don’t deny they existed I’ve always thought it rather arrogant of us to require modern sensibilities of people who did not live in modern times. We don’t look down on people of the 17th Century for not having our understanding of science, why should we take them to task for not having our social mores? Not saying racism is ever okay, just that it’s more understandable in a provincial era that doesn’t have the mass communication we have today. It’s much easier to form opinions based on apocrypha when there’s little objective information to contradict it. But I digress…

This is an interesting film for those of us attracted to the horror genre in general and the classics of the genre in particular. Here we have many current practitioners of the art of dark fantasy storytelling—Neil Gaiman, Caitlin Kiernan, Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter, Guillermo del Toro, etc.—telling us what they think about various aspects of Lovecraft’s life and work against the backdrop of a chronological recounting of same. There are fascinating anecdotes, mainly from Kiernan and Gaiman, along with pithy, cute observations, mainly by Carpenter and Del Toro (my favorite one from Carpenter is about how Lovecraft obviously had some kind of serious problem with fish), all intertwined with a factual account of the man’s life and times. Some of the revelations: Lovecraft’s wife left him and they would eventually divorce due to his unwillingness to find gainful employment while working on his writing; Lovecraft was his own harshest critic, almost never thinking anything he did was very good; and Lovecraft made virtually nothing from his works during his life. He was a strange man with strange ideas (as mentioned rather obliquely in the first paragraph here), ideas that he expressed in his writing while never falling into the trap of believing the things he wrote about were real. (Frankly, I now get the joke that had to be behind the beliefs of Sutter Cane in the Carpenter film In the Mouth of Madness.)

There are all kinds of things I could talk about here but I would really rather you watch this documentary. It’s the first one I’ve seen based on Lovecraft and it has made me wanting to see others. I’m also wondering if there isn’t one of similar quality about Robert E. Howard. Have you ever seen The Whole Wide World? That was very good, and I have the book it was based on. Maybe I’ll be ready with a review of it soon as well…

Buy Lovecraft Fear of the Unknown On DVD from Amazon.com:

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 2 ½ of 5 Stars

The first time I saw a trailer for this it was a teaser. It showed Harrison Ford looking old and gruff—y’know, the way he always looks nowadays. BUT… he was also in a cowboy hat! And there were other guys running around in Old West gear while some flying thing shot photon torpedoes at them. It looked lame, but Harrison Ford was in it so I thought, “Maybe…” Then I saw some more, longer, trailers. I saw that Daniel Craig was in it, too, along with several other long-time favorites like Clancy Brown and Keith Carradine. And the story itself looked kind of interesting, with an alternate history look to it. I didn’t know that this was based on a comic. I don’t remember even now seeing the Cowboys & Aliens comic or the tpb it was collected into, although I’m sure I did since I see almost everything whether I buy it or not. Getting back to the run-up to the film, the point is that the more I saw of it the more I wanted to see. Granted, that’s the point of them having trailers in the first place but when that’s all you have to go on…

And the film starts out looking good. Craig wakes up in the middle of nowhere, memory gone, wounded. With a strange manacle-looking thing on his left arm. He makes his way into the nearest town and has the local preacher work on the “bullet wound” in his side (which is odd later when we find out there’s a “Doc” there the preacher never mentioned), we see a couple of Clint Eastwood-type “cooler cowboy than you” moments and then it all just sorta peters out. Yeah, there are a few cool scenes here and there even later in the film when we all know what’s going on, but for the most part it’s just kinda flat. Reminiscent of Independence Day in a lot of ways. The aliens are here for pretty much the same reasons, they act pretty much the same… it could be argued that Cowboys & Aliens is a prequel of sorts to ID4, except that I’m sure it’s not. The main problem here is that there is little meat to this story other than some dimestore “Can’t we all just get along?” philosophy and some fairly shoddy-looking science. Of course, I expected that when I saw the opening credits and the names Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci mentioned prominently in both the production and the screenwriting lines. I loved Star Trek, but let’s face it, there was virtually no story behind that film at all, and the Kurtzman/Orci-led comic prequel, along with the Alan Dean Foster novelization of the film, shows that in every ugly detail. Far more glitz than growl in that film than this one, of course, but the basic theory remains.

And then there’s the fact that there’s no additional scene after the credits. That is amazingly annoying, especially here. I say that because there isn’t a twenty minute closing credits run where we are shown everyone who has ever participated in special effects work, as we are in most films now it seems (and I’m not slamming the practice of putting on everyone who had anything to do with making the film; they all absolutely deserve to be recognized), I’m guessing because there just wasn’t nearly the animation f/x and computer graphics we get in virtually every genre film of late. I guess they felt the audience hadn’t sat through enough to deserve a post script. That’s okay. Even though I found the film enjoyable to a point I had already seen enough.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

In one sentence: A faithful rendition of the character’s origin story with enough tweaking so as to bring it in line with the Marvel Film Universe, Captain America: The First Avenger makes Cap accessible to even the most jaded moviegoer while satisfying (mostly) the long-term fan and the newbie alike and lays the final groundwork for the much-anticipated Avengers film of next year.

Wow! This is a great film. I know you’ve been hearing it from various places but it really is true. Chris Evans, who took a shellacking from many fans when he was selected for the role, is perfect all the way through, both as (digitally-aided) pre-Super Soldier Serum Steve Rogers and as the hero himself. The great thing here, and what is so true to the character in the comics, is that Steve’s central character never really changes at all through all the physical stuff that goes on. He is always who he has always been, just a guy who hates bullies and believes that everyone should have the freedom to be who they are. Steve is courageous even before he has the power of Captain America and he never lets it change him—although he is human enough to allow his head to be turned by a pretty girl. Steve believes in the ideal of the American Way and is willing to lay his life down to share it with others. He is the ultimate patriot and the ideal soldier, a man whose conscience dictates his actions and whose every instinct is for helping others.

And then we have Johann Schmidt, the man who is known as the Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving. In this film (and maybe in the comics, too, although I haven’t specifically read this), the Red Skull is the first recipient of the Super Soldier Formula and Dr. Erskine’s—the creator of the formula—greatest mistake and regret. The Skull we are introduced to in this picture is every bit the polar opposite of our hero, just as he is in the comics. It seems that the SSF here amplifies the personality traits of whoever takes it. Where it made Steve even more courageous and brave and honest, it has apparently made Schmidt more avaricious and bold and power-hungry. He will do virtually anything to further his own aims, even though they may cost his “beloved” Fuhrer in the end. Schmidt creates a secret organization within the Reich, one long-time Marvel fans will easily recognize, Hydra, and uses it to create advanced weapons and scientific techniques in furtherance of his own goals. Schmidt’s battle with Rogers is an epic struggle that has gotten more ridiculous in some ways in the Marvel Comics Universe as we get further away from WWII in time, but in this film we are given a very good rationale for their both living to the now of 2011. Granted, we don’t really know if the Skull will be back but… they are planning a sequel… and they have already set up the character so they don’t need any certain actor to play him (although I would like to see Weaving again if they do bring him back).

It’s really hard not to say too much about this film. If you haven’t seen it I really don’t want to give too much of a detailed synopsis. If you know the mythology of the Captain America character you already know pretty much what happens in the film (the big stuff, anyway), and if you don’t I hate how much I’ve already said. As difficult as this is for me to say, with Thor being my absolute favorite character, this is my pick for Best Superhero Film of Summer so far. I wasn’t thrilled with X-Men: First Class, but I really enjoyed Green Lantern, and I thought they did a fantastic job with Thor. But Captain America: The First Avenger was really a great work, one that I would put on a level with even Spiderman 2 as the best of Marvel’s output in this arena. I was a little worried that we were going to see too much of the WWII era through the eyes of today, as cynicism too often seems to be our current drug of choice in any artistic endeavor, but this is one time they got it right. I applaud everyone involved with this film and can only ask humbly for more.

Our ongoing column giving the spotlight to movies that bucked the Hollywood Blockbuster trend and still managed to deliver a superior viewing experience. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Hunter Prey is a 2009 independent science fiction film written and directed by Sandy Collora on a very economical budget of $425 thousand. It follows a group of interstellar commandos tracking their alien prisoner on a desert planet. Somehow the prisoner managed to force the prison ship carrying him to crash on this planet and now it is the job of these commandos to take him back into their custody. And they must bring him in alive. This turns out to be a point of contention, seeing as the alien proves more formidable than first thought, but the commander explains that since they have wiped out all but one of this alien’s race, it plans to “return the favor”, and they must find out how.

That’s a very brief introduction to this film, but I want to keep it as spoiler free as possible because Hunter Prey has plenty of surprises. I stumbled across this one because of a recommendation over on the Sci Fi Reddit page and decided to give it a look. And despite a few flaws here and there, Collora manages to deliver a very good genre entry with this modest film. It definitely has an initial cheesiness about which may cause some to tune out early on, but I recommend that you stick with the film and give it the chance it deserves. The armored uniforms that the commandos wear are definitely an early weak point, looking not unlike discarded Power Rangers gear dragged through the dirt several times. But remember that this is no big budget affair and pretty quickly you don’t even notice those uniforms anymore. Also, the acting has lapses from time to time, but for the most part is decent at least.

What sets Hunter Prey apart from the Syfy Saturday night cheese-fests that it resembles at first blush is that it takes a familiar story and builds on it and develops it organically instead of through contrivance. We have seen this sort of tale before, done well in the Star Trek TOS episode “Arena” and not so well in the feature film Enemy Mine, but Hunter Prey quickly establishes itself as more than just a knockoff of genre formulas. The film could have easily descended into a predicament-oriented affair where the commandos and their prey find themselves in a never-ending succession of precarious situations, but it avoids that pitfall. It follows a rather straightforward plot of hunters pursuing a dangerous prey, though it throws in a nice helping of twists as well. And it advances the story through character development and mostly avoids the contrivances you expect from a low budget sci fi film. The ending is a bit confusing (more on that below in the SPOILERS section), and maybe somewhat unsatisfying, but it does not completely derail the film. And the movie is relatively brisk at about 90 minutes running time which works in its favor. It’s definitely worth checking out, even if it won’t quite overshadow too many of the bigger budget CGI-fests that have hit theaters the last couple of years.

WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW (Skip this paragraph to avoid). As mentioned above, the ending to Hunter Prey is a rather vague and may turn off more than a few viewers to this film. I have actually watched it a couple of times and have picked up a few more clues each time, but still can’t claim that I fully understand it or feel like it delivers a satisfying resolution. I think a lot of the understanding revolves around the comment that Centauri makes to Jericho, “Is that what you want the legacy of your kind to be?”, referring to that latter’s plan to destroy the Sedonian homeworld. I believe that Centauri infects himself with a degree of self-doubt at that point, and we had already seen that he had his own previous disagreements with Sedonian authorities. But would that be enough for him to allow Jericho to escape and potentially carry out his plan of retribution. And what did Centauri mean when he said that he and Jericho would meet again? Was that setting up a sequel? If so, it seemed to be at the expense of a more satisfying resolution. But again, as I said above, that doesn’t completely kill the movie, which is mostly excellent up to the end, just docks it a bit in my final rating.

A note for sci fi trivia buffs, this film seems to have all sorts of obscure references to other science fiction properties. The names of Karza and Croyer seem like a reference to the Micronauts comic book series (Baron Karza and Acroyear). Centauri could be a reference to the like-nmaed race from Babylon 5 or any of umpteen other sci fi uses of the term. Orin Jericho comes straight from Starchaser: The Legend of Orin and perhaps the Jericho TV series as well. And it seems like there were a few others that I noticed that have since slipped my mind. Also, Erin Gray, ex-spandex wearing hottie from TV’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, provides the voice for the computer Clea.

Director Sandy Collora had previously worked with effects and makeup expert Stan Winston (Aliens, Predator, The Terminator) and has spent most of his career behind the scenes. But in 2004, he directed the well-received fan film Batman: Dead End which Kevin Smith has referred to as “possibly the truest, best Batman movie ever made” (you can download the eight minute film at this link). Hunter Prey is Collora’s first feature-length film and he definitely shows promise with this one. Science fiction fans should check this one out and keep an eye on future developments from this director.

Buy Hunter Prey and Other Anti-Blockbusters on DVD from Amazon.com:

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 1 Star out of 5 Stars

I loved this film’s predecessor, Resident Evil: Extinction. I’ve never seen the animated film they did after Extinction but I would watch it. When this film came out I had hopes for it, hopes that fell as every new trailer or commercial or interview I saw about it looked and sounded worse and worse. More, it had the stigma of being the fourth film in this series. Remember how the mundanes (mainly) always said that that Star Trek film franchise was all about the even-numbered ones, and that the odd-numbered films sucked? This franchise, for me, is the exact opposite of that. I thought the first one was pretty good; I could never understand the outpouring of hate for it by critics. Sure, there were things about it I thought were lame, mostly things about the all-powerful Umbrella Corporation (I’ve still never figured out what they hope to gain with the T-Virus), but overall I liked it. The second film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, was so bad I erased it from my memory. I swear, I watched it a couple times (once because a friend had never seen any of them and wanted to go see Extinction with me) but I can’t really remember anything about it now… other than the gunfight. I almost didn’t go see Extinction but a couple friends wanted to get together so we did and I was very glad of it. I still think it’s the best of the three, now four.

RE: Afterlife starts off with whiz-bang action, and intersperses some connecting scenes introing old and new characters (“Hi, I’m Alice, and you are…?”) and setting up the “story” of this film with more whiz-bang action. There’s lots of slo-mo and ducking bullets… that…sssslowwwwly… ggggggoooooo bbbbbbbyyyyyyy. And then there’s lots of near-Lovecraftian monsters and death and corpses staggering and clawing and feeding. Oh, and there’s the guy who apparently runs all of Umbrella with an iron fist (get it? an umbrella held in an iron fist? Well, I never promised it was funny!) also infected with the T-Virus, also housing what looks to be a very Lovecraftian parasite. His deal is that if he ingests Alice he’ll gain complete control of the virus. At least that’s what he thinks. Okay, okay, moment of truth: The only thing interesting in this entire film to me is the mind-control thingie Claire Redfield is wearing when we first see her and which Jill Valentine (who looked familiar to me but I had to read was in Apocalypse) is sporting at the end. I’m really afraid the story will be lame but, hey, it’ll be the fifth (they’ve already announced another one, RE: Retribution).

Generally I would tell you a lot about this film. It does fall into the category where I don’t want you to waste time or money on it and I usually give a solid synopsis of those so you can feel like you know the story without seeing it… and I did. Believe me, the above is pretty much all that happens in this entire flick. It is a mish-mash of monsters from sf and horror with no hint of a storyline through most of it. There are a few cool scenes here and there but it’s really not worth your time. Put it this way, early in the movie Alice is wrestling with Wesker (the “Dark Overlord” of UC) in a helicopter. He injects her with something and she thanks him for making her human… and it’s never mentioned again, nor does she really act any differently. Wesker needs to eat Alice in order to quell the T-Virus within him… but has no compunctions at all about blowing her up. It’s just a disjointed mess, for the casual fan anyway. True fans of the RE video game might get all this and love it because they already know the story. For me? I’m just asking that the next one make sense. If they have to cut down on the slow motion and such that would be fine.

Buy the Resident Evil Movies on Blu-ray from Amazon.com:

Our ongoing series reviewing the greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror movies. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Directed By: René Laloux
Produced By: Simon Damiani, Andre Valio-Cavaglione
Written By: Stefan Wul (Novel) René Laloux, Roland Topor (Screenplay)
Starring: Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart, Jean Valmont
AKA: La planète sauvage
Original Release: 1973

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: On another planet, a race of large, blue humanoids known as Draags keep the tiny humans known as Oms as pets. The Draag child Tiva takes home an Om baby after the infant’s mother is killed by the rough play of several other Draag children. Tiva raises the baby, who she names Terr, and becomes very attached to him. Terr begins to discover the knowledge of the Draags through the learning headset that Tiva wears during her lessons (she usually holds Terr in her lap as she listens to the teaching tool). Tiva’s father is not happy with her attachment to her pet, though, and he does not want Terr around during her lessons. Fearing separation from the knowledge he has been acquiring, Terr runs away with the headset and eventually becomes part of a group of “wild” Oms living in an abandoned Draag park. There, other Oms begin to acquire the knowledge from the learning tool which results in their ability to read a sign that has been posted on the park indicating that it will be “de-Omed”. This is carried out, killing many in the park, but many others flee and kill one of the Draags in the process. This leads to the Draags stepping up their efforts to eliminate all of the wild Oms across the planet. The Oms in turn use their new-found knowledge to construct spaceships at an abandoned Om rocket depot that will take them away from the planet. They successfully escape and make their way to a nearby planet where the Draags conduct mating rituals with beings from another galaxy. The Oms threaten to disrupt this process forcing the Draags to offer a compromise that will allow the two races to live together in peace.

Review/Commentary: Audiences today may not realize it, but there was a time when animated films were quite rare on the big screen, and if you take Disney out of the equation they were almost non-existent. French Director René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet offered a rare entry during this time that provided a beautifully animated film along with a decent Science Fiction tale. Based on the novel Oms en série (Oms by the Dozen) by Stefan Wul, it proceeded with a fairly simple, straightforward plot that had a basic message of understanding and coexistence woven throughout its fantastic and surreal imagery. Much of this visualization came from writer/artist Roland Topor who populated the world of the film with fantastical creatures and settings that demonstrated wild leaps of imagination. And while the animation from director Laloux can be stiff and plodding at times, the movie still delivers a beautiful and at times poetic piece of filmcraft. Some might find it a bit inaccessible as it is definitely slow-moving, talky, and at times distant. And its underlying theme of learning to live together seems somewhat naïve and trite and maybe a bit too retro-Cold War era for modern audiences. But still, the film provides an interesting perspective as the audience identifies with the Oms and experiences the dread they feel as they deal with harsh conditions and face potential extinction. Plus, there is an affecting, poetic quality to the movie that draws in the viewer and stays with them long after the film has ended. The visual imagery can take much of the credit for this, but there’s still more beneath the surface that resonates with the audience. Fans of animation will definitely want to check this one out as an early, non-Disney, non kid-friendly entry in the genre with an interesting social/sci fi story at its core. And even though this French-language film has not had a lot of exposure Stateside, and has mostly faded from memory these days, it deserves some recognition as a notable and significant international genre offering.

Buy Fantastic Planet and Other Sci Fi Animated Classics on DVD from Amazon.com: