Cinema Dispatch: Resident Evil

Resident Evil and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Zach Cregger

If I could get one wish of unlimited facetious power, It’d be for every single gamer to get an offline hobby which, to my mind, would solve at least ten percent of the world’s problems. An extremely vocal minority of us is far too enamored with their own sense of self-importance, and this has only grown stronger in a Post-GooberGate world where the malignant moans of the man-babies can reach those in the highest seats of power. Sadly, they seem to have turned their ire on critically acclaimed filmmaker and all-around cool dude Zach Cregger for not taking the Resident Evil franchise seriously enough in a movie that they hadn’t seen yet, and while no one is saying outright just how “persuasive” these complaints were, Cregger has confirmed that the movie was reedited after test screenings to take out a lot of jokes. Heaven forbid that we don’t have a laugh at one of the campiest franchises in all of gaming, but let’s not let the behind the scenes drama overwhelm everything. After all, one of Hollywood’s fastest rising stars has directed a video game movie that actually looks really good; even if it’s not an obvious adaptation of a specific entry in the series which I’m sure would have made the fans happy but I’d wager would be a far less interesting movie given that this is the same fantastically creative mind that gave us Barbarians and Weapons. Is this the creative and artistically challenging entry that finally elevates the Resident Evil film franchise, or was it better left in the hands of B-Movie maestros like Paul WS Anderson? Let’s find out!!

Poor sad-sack Bryan (Austin Abrams) is yet another victim of the gig economy and is stuck delivering organs through some particularly morbid app-based service while arguing with his girlfriend over some unexpected news.  The job and conversation are cut short, however, when he runs over a woman who doesn’t seem all that affected by it, and he finds even weirder happening at a nearby farmhouse when he goes looking for help.  It seems that the Umbrella Corporation has done what they always do and accidentally released a virus that is turning everyone into tentacle monsters, and they all want to turn our boy into a Bryan-sandwich before the night is through.  The only hope he and the rest of humanity has is in the box he’s delivering to Raccoon City Hospital, but with so much in the way and so few life skills for such a situation, the future looks rather grim for us all.  Will Bryan find the will to save the day and fight for the life he’s been taking for granted all these years?  Is there any hope of fixing all of this, even if Bryan can make his way to the hospital and give the scientists what they need to craft a cure? The worst part is, he’s probably not gonna get a good tip either way.

“THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MY DAY OFF!!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Weapons

Weapons and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Zach Cregger

I went ahead and checked my backlog of reviews, and it turns out that I didn’t actually post a review of Barbarian when it came out. It’s strange because I remember seeing it in the theaters, and I’m pretty sure I started writing something, but clearly it fell through the cracks and I just never got around to it; a fate that will probably be shared by both Companion and Novocain this year. Sorry, Jack Quaid. In any case, I thought the movie was a very solid first outing for a budding horror filmmaker. Cregger was certainly no Jordan Peele when it comes to sketch comedians making scary movies, but there was plenty to like in that movie and, I was interested to see where he would go from there. His latest movie is generating the kind of buzz that you would expect from a Jordan Peele level filmmaker, which certainly has me excited to see what the former Whitest Kids You Know member has up his sleeve this time. Are we witnessing the evolution of another horror icon, or will Cregger’s latest outing be an also-ran in a genre that has an overabundance of talented filmmakers already? Let’s find out!!

In the small town of Maybrook, not unlike your own hometown, a mysterious thing happened one night. At 2:17am, seventeen kids mysteriously got out of their beds and did the Naruto run into the darkness of the night. What’s more peculiar is that they all came from a single classroom at the local elementary school, leaving just one kid who didn’t run away named Alex (Cary Christopher), and the teacher Justine (Julia Garner). With such a bizarre thing to happen and with no explanation to be found, the town became very suspicious of Justine even after the police and FBI cleared her of all wrongdoing. Leading the charge is Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the lost kids, but he’s only the tip of the iceberg as Justine is scrutinized at every turn and even gets put on administrative leave from the school as the principal (Benedict Wong) feels her presence would just escalate tensions further, but nothing is going to keep her or this community safe until someone figures out what’s going on. Where did these kids go, and what drove them there in the first place? Will Justine find the answers before she becomes a victim of the town’s grief and growing madness? You know, teachers are already under constant scrutiny as it is, and they certainly don’t need something like this on their shoulders!

“All I wanted was to teach the kids to finger paint, but no! I had to teach the GHOST CLASS!”
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