Resident Evil

Rating: 7/10 (15 August 2016)

Okay, I do not play video games, being RavenGlamDVDCollector takes up too much time to fool around with other stuff as well, and my interests are 100% glamour-driven. Also, I originally, way back in 2007, had a multitude of choice, and decided to give RESIDENT EVIL and ULTRAVIOLET and BLOODRAYNE a miss, they'd be blood and gore fests, judging by the posters in the video store. Recently, I obtained UNDERWORLD's first three, and then there was the trailer of ULTRAVIOLET, which surprised me, I was hooked, that I had to see. Okay, I have since learned that people do not go for ULTRAVIOLET, that it is a rip-off, and, yeah, as good as that trailer is, it also became immediately clear to me that there is a lot of fakery, a lot of cartoonish stuff, I mean, look at the trailer, it's great, but cannot hide that there might be problems...
... Tp cut a long story a bit shorter, I could only obtain ULTRAVIOLET as part of a two-disc deal, the other movie being RESIDENT EVIL, so, a couple of days ago, I watched the big gore fest. Ooh boy, it was only the week before that I saw THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE with those mandrill creatures attacking, and this week it was mutated Dobermanns on the rampage.
I've been a fan of Milla Jovovich ever since she was a child star in TWO MOON JUNCTION way back in the previous century, yes, I am that old! Then, a few years later, she was in RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON, and that one sure had its moments. Time has treated her well, I see, quite a few years later, she is still this stunning long- legged beauty with this amazingly aquiline face. She is ultra-feminine, prime quality Ukranian export. The movie itself has a cumbersome slow start, but eventually the action is astounding, the producers had gone all out to provide the creepiest ugliness you can hope to find on film. It's just, I wouldn't really call it scary, it's not really suspenseful, it happens too blatantly in the open, it doesn't come unexpectedly, that's what I mean. But the mutated dog scene, that is something, when you hear that dog coming on, tip, tip, tip, claws on steel, and the first sight... hoo, horrible.
I'd give them an A for effort, but I have to point out that the movie takes a very long time to establish itself. Once it gets going, it lifts off, but you can't shake the feeling that it could have been done a whole lot better. Certainly Milla Jovovich (hey, and the commentary finally taught me how to pronounce her name!) is the ideal choice. Really, that is the only thing I am sure about re this movie. Some of the male leads are kinda blah! but I'm not going into that right now. And Michelle Rodriguez is one tough ol' bird, hey?
A weak point of this very violent movie is the unrealistic portrayal of dismemberment. A pinprick causes blood, people, you know that. So what does it mean when on-screen HUMAN characters, not undead characters, get chopped up, but not a drop of blood? Well, d-uh, it means the producers we're trying to appease the American Motion Picture Association by cutting down on what would have earned them a more stringent rating. But if a character doesn't bleed, it was undead too... Something everybody forgot. Major goof.
In closing, this Milla Jovovich fan is quite satisfied. She's great, movie is not too bad, not as good as she is, though.
Grrr-aarghhh!