Cap'n Howdy Presents: The Five Worst Movies I Saw in 2012

 For a change, I saw more good movies than terrible movies in 2012. I know, this must come as a shock to you, but it's true. Looking back, there are several movies I saw that were "okay" to "meh," but very few that outright stank. Well, that were made in 2012 anyway: Horror Fest and Summer Fest entries don't count this year, with one exception.

 The very bottom and the very top lists for 2012 aren't going to be too long, but while I try to put together some kind of notion of how I want to organize the "Best Of"'s, there's not much question in my mind how the bottom of the barrel stacks up. (The middle is going to take me a little while...)

 In the interest of fairness, I didn't see many of what people tell me are the very worst of this year, including: That's My Boy, Battleship, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Total Recall, The Watch, Guilt Trip, For A Good Time Call, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2, Parental Guidance, or The Apparition. Unfortunately, I can't be of any help to you in that respect, but I can promise you that this list serves as one last So You Won't Have To for last year.

 So without further ado, let's count down from 5 to 1 of the Worst Movies of 2012.
 

 5.Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies - So of the three films about Abraham Lincoln released this year, I saw two of them, and instead of picking the one with the vampires from the director of Wanted, the Cap'n wisely(?) chose the knock-off instead. From what I hear, The Asylum's cash-in / rip-off is arguably the better of the two, and if that's the case then I'm glad I didn't watch Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This movie was terrible, and only became watchable as the anachronisms began to pile up, along with the shoehorning in of a young Theodore Roosevelt, who helps Lincoln, his secret prostitute mistress, Stonewall Jackson, and John Wilkes Booth (a member of the Secret Service... yeah, I know) to protect Fort Pulaski from zombies.

 And trust me, while that last sentence may have you intrigued, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies in no way deserves your attention.


 4. (tie) Underworld: Awakening and Resident Evil: Retribution - Here we have the case of two sequels, well into their franchise lives (four and five, respectively) that serve no purpose other than to set up the next sequel. While it's true that I've given up on the Resident Evil series, I held out just a sliver of hope that the return of Kate Beckinsale to the Underworld universe might up the trashy factor, but it was not to be. Underworld 4 was a lot of moping, Scott Speedman body-doubling, more pointless philosophical debate about what it means to be a vampire when Lycans control the world, and just a smidgen of Stephen Rea chewing scenery. If there's a fifth film (and Awakening is going to look awfully silly if there isn't), I can't say I'm all that enthused that we'll ever get back to the campy tone of the first flick.


 As for Retribution, well, there isn't much I would add to the review linked above. It's not really a movie, but a series of extended (read: boring) fight sequences peppered with pointless dialogue designed to reset the story (again) so that we can get to a "more interesting" movie next time. Since it looks like the next film is going to have even less of a plot, it's hard to imagine how hard Paul W.S. Anderson is going to have to work to screw it up. Then again, he lives to disappoint, so he'll find a way...

 3. (tie) Piranha 3DD and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance -  Speaking of disappointing, what the hell happened with these two totally unnecessary sequels? They were primed to be very necessary, very schlocky, audiovisual overload based solely on the combination of source material and director. On the one hand, you have John Gulager, director of the hyper-ridiculous gorefest Feast, directing the sequel to Alexadre Aja's T&A meets Blood & Guts remake of Piranha. And on the other hand, you have Nicolas Cage returning as Ghost Rider and behind the camera are the directors of Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage, two of the most ridiculous movies in Jason Statham's already ridiculous action movie career. Oh, and both movies were shot in 3-D! They couldn't lose! It was impossible!

 Somehow, both films end up being complete and total wastes of time. Not only are Piranha 3DD and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance not the anarchic clusterfucks you would hope for, but they're something even worse: Boring.

  Yes, boring: neither film is remotely fun to watch, in a trashy way or in a "what the hell was that?" way, which is a cardinal sin when making sequels to two absurd movies. Gulager not only doesn't deliver on the DD's his title promises (unless you count the first and last five minutes of the film), but all of the energy of Feast is replaced by the worst tendencies on display in Feast II and III. Instead of kinetic camerawork and editing, he instead falls back on a love of flatulence and cameos for the sake of having cameos, so that while he can't make a baby piranha swimming up a girl's va-jay-jay and biting her boyfriend's pecker interesting, he sure can give us three different montages devoted to David Hasselhoff running in slow motion.

 Far be it from me to point this out, but when the Spongebob Squarepants Movie finds a better way to use a superfluous cameo by David Hasselhoff, then you're doing something wrong.

 Meanwhile, Neveldine and Taylor not only don't add to the gonzo stupidity that was the first Ghost Rider, but they dial back the insanity and Mega-Acting / Neo-Shamanism by Cage and give us the tamest possible version of Spirits of Vengeance. We get less Ghost Rider, more mumble-cage, a supernatural knock-off of Terminator 2, and to top it off they find a way to waste Anthony Stewart Head, Ciarán Hinds, and Idris Elba. Thanks, assholes. Now we'll never get a properly stupid Ghost Rider movie.

 2. Taken 2 - Can we just agree not to let Olivier Megaton make movies anymore? While I didn't see Columbiana and maybe it's actually good, Megaton has now ruined not one, but two franchises with shitty sequels. First he stripped the absurdity from the Transporter films, giving the world the first boring Jason Statham action film, and then in 2012 he took Taken and drained everything good out of that with his awful sequel.

 Taken was a pretty simple concept: sex slave traders take Liam Neeson's daughter. Liam Neeson kills everyone standing between him and his daughter, in increasingly brutal ways, because that's what he does. He has a very particular set of skills, skills that make him a nightmare for people like you. Presuming that you are Eastern European sex slave traders, of course. It's a stripped down action film that delivered simple, no frills beat downs and torture.

 So logically you'd follow that up by having the families of everyone Liam Neeson murdered (yes, he has a name, and it's Brian Whogivesashit) want revenge on him and his family. In his infinite wisdom - well, really to nail Famke Janssen now that Xander Berkley wasn't asked to come back - he invites his wife and daughter to join him in Istanbul, where Neeson and Janssen are promptly kidnapped. So okay, that means Maggie Grace is going to have to do the inverted version of Taken, right? She'll save her father and mother than maybe kill Rade Serbedzija, because who else would be playing the father of the guy Neeson electrocuted to death?

 Nope. Liam Neeson gets out, crashes into the American Embassy and somehow doesn't end up being shot or prosecuted for property damage (because he calls Leland Orser, returning along with John Gries and D.B. Sweeney who is reprising someone else's role for a quick cameo paycheck). We then don't see Maggie Grace (sorry, Kim Whogivesashit) until after Neeson goes back to rescue Lenore Whogivesashit and kill all of the bad guys. Because that's what he does. Also she passes her driving test, which is somehow integral to the plot. (Not kidding)

 Only this time you can't tell that's what he does because Olivier Megaton doesn't know how to shoot a comprehensible action sequence to save his life. I literally ended up with headaches during the three (the ONLY three) fight scenes in Taken 2. It's virtually impossible to tell what's going on, who is hitting who, or where anyone is in relation to the person they're in combat with because Megaton and his editor throw rapid cuts of extreme close-ups on the screen to guarantee that nobody has the slightest idea what they're seeing. So not only is Taken 2 a LOT of setup for very little payoff, but when the time comes for Liam Neeson to use his particular set of skills, you don't even know what the hell is going on, and it hurts your brain.

 I HATED Taken 2, and there's no possible way that an "Unrated" version could be an improvement, because unless they hired a competent director and editor to reshoot the entire movie, it's a total waste of time.

 But Taken 2 isn't the worst movie I saw this year. It's not even the worst Luc Besson produced movie I saw this year, because that distinction goes to:


1. Lockout - Here's the deal: I'm willing to be veeeerrrrrry forgiving when it comes to cheesy science fiction. There are a lot of things I'll put up with if a movie can easily be summed up as "Escape from New York in Space," so even if Lockout was rocking a 17% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes the night we went to see it, I was prepared for that. I knew we wouldn't be watching high art, but instead a goofy, illogical, dumbed-down crowd-pleaser that catered to the cheap seats. As long as I got Guy Pearce as a bad-ass for ninety minutes, I figured we'd be okay. Besides, after that we'd be seeing The Cabin in the Woods. Surely it couldn't be that bad.

 And sure enough, it starts out promising. In fact, the opening of the film is the European Trailer, which is Guy Pearce making wisecracks and being punched while Peter Stormare interrogates him. And then we flashback to why he's being interrogated, and there's a clever joke involving jumping out of one window and into another gone wrong.

 And then there's the high speed unicycle chase that looks like a Playstation (One) cut-scene.

 Okay, that's really bad, but let's keep going, right? It'll get schlocky soon.

 And then Lockout fell apart. As I said, I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to movies like this, so I'll let things like repeatedly putting up a title card to let us know what we're looking at even if we've seen it five times. It's like watching a TV movie without the commercial breaks, I guess. It supports the theory that Lockout is "a series of movie-like images taped together." But then it gives up on the laws of physics while still trying to use said laws of physics as critical plot points. Then your brain begins to melt a little bit, then you start laughing. Not at what's going on in Lockout, because that ceased to make sense a long time ago, but because it's the only way to express what the movie is doing to your brain.

 Do yourself a favor and click on the link embedded in the title. It's called "Four Reasons You Might Be Drunk Enough to Watch Lockout," and while I don't recommend watching Lockout, especially not while drunk - as you are likely to do harm to your television for subjecting you to Lockout - it may give you some idea why, try as I may, I couldn't find a worse movie to watch in 2012.



 (Dis)Honorable Mention: Men in Black III, American Reunion, The Campaign - All of which were okay, I guess, but not movies I'm probably going to watch again.

 Extra (Dis)Honorable Mention to The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot so pointless and so tedious that I couldn't even talk myself into finishing it.

Retro Review: The Other Resident Evil Films

 So when I said yesterday that "The Cap'n has a long and storied history with the Resident Evil franchise," I neglected to mention that none of it made the transition from old Blogorium to new Blogorium. Back in the days before twittering, the Cap'n was delivering bite-sized reviews ("fun" sized?) and when the time came to pick and choose what I thought people might want to read in the "official" Blogorium archives, 98% of all things related to Resident Evil didn't make the cut.

 Obviously there are the So You Won't Have To Reviews for the last two films, and I believe that there are brief mentions of Resident Evil in the "Mission Valley Years" retro review. The first film even made it on to my "List of Movies I Regret Seeing." That said, when I went to look back and see if I wrote anything about it, surely enough I did not. So I will now:

 I saw Resident Evil with two friends who, along with others, made up a consortium of movie-going hooligans known to terrorize otherwise sensible adults. They would pay good money to see Jeepers Creepers, 8mm, and Dungeons and Dragons, and we would descent like a pack of MST3k-aping hyenas, callously commenting on everything in the film. Think of us as the dinner theater equivalent of a Mr. Plinkett review and you have some idea why the ushers had to come down and yell at us.

 (Unrelated to Resident Evil, my favorite "Shush!" moment happened during 1998's Godzilla, when I launched into a tirade about how absurd it was that the French of all people would be equipped to wage war on fake American Godzilla. When I was justifiably hushed from a few rows back, I politely turned around and replied "well, you know it's true!")

 Seeing Resident Evil only made sense, because we played the games and the movie looked stupid and at that point in time WE SAW EVERYTHING. WE SAW IDLE HANDS AND AMERICAN PIE 2 AND THE IN CROWD, for crying out loud. There wasn't a movie so unwatchable (Loser) that we couldn't find an excuse to go see. Resident Evil at least had the pretense of kind of being related to something we liked.

 The movie itself, like every film Paul W.S. Anderson has been directly involved in (by that I mean directing in addition to writing) not named "Death Race", was tedious, over-edited, and underwritten. But, and I will never forget this as long as I live, it provided my friend with the opportunity to use the second most inappropriate nickname for female anatomy during the first of Milla Jovovich's full frontal nudity scenes (scenes which ended when the series moved to 3D, by the way). It is, in fact, inappropriate enough that I won't even repeat it here, but I'm sure the guilty party could be cajoled into putting it in the comments. *coughProfessorMurdercough*

 I tried to watch Resident Evil again on DVD with another friend of mine who hadn't seen the films but liked the games, and he fell asleep. I did not, and I feel like he got the better end of the deal in that situation.

 Now here's the funny part: I would imagine you think I hate all of the Resident Evil movies, but the truth is that I kind of like Apocalypse and (to a lesser degree) Extinction. What they have in common is that Paul W.S. Anderson didn't direct them, probably because he was off ruining Alien vs Predator and something else that wasn't Death Race*. He produced them and was involved in writing them, but in the hands of someone not named Paul W.S. Anderson, the first two sequels were kind of dumb, but had a kinetic energy to them, a vague sense of scale (especially in the third film), and action sequences that didn't make me want to fall asleep.

 The following link takes you to a review of Resident Evil: Apocalypse by our own Professor Murder, which features what may be my favorite SPOILER ALERT ever.

 As to Resident Evil: Extinction, a film that I have even less to say about than I thought I did, the Cap'n did manage to dredge this up:

 Resident Evil: Extinction - Here's the best instance of "yeah, like I was going to watch that", so I did it for you. What can I say? It's trying really hard to further the Resident Evil story from the first two movies, while trying to be scary and action packed. Well, it's not really scary. There's not a lot of action. What there is amounts to lots of shots of crowds of zombies, tons of people dying, and Milla Jovovich shooting and slashing anything that moves. RE:E has a decent sequence that reintroduces Jovovich as Alice, both as a cloned experiment and as the real deal, and it seems like the movie might be building to a really cool action sequence in what's left of Las Vegas. Then it abandons pretty much all of that in favor of a REALLY rushed "stalk the monster" sequence which makes up the last 3% of the movie. It's like someone said "we need to get this over with" when the movie's barely 90 minutes long, and it feels like a reel is missing or something. Still, I guess if you liked Resident Evil: Apocalypse, you might want to rent this.

 Also, it the following made it into my Year End Recap for 2007:


Resident Evil: Extinction - I'm on the record not liking Resident Evil. I think Resident Evil: Apocalypse was a dumb antidote to the "trying to be smart" first film. Resident Evil: Extinction has some good ideas that don't really get the attention they should. It doesn't help that the film feels like it's missing a reel near the end.

 And that's about it. I'm actually surprised that I remember the film at all, because it only really comes to me in fits and bursts. The kid named after a store, Mike Epps being eating by zombie crows, Milla Jovovich falling into some kind of trap with zombies, and the introduction of the Alice clones that Afterlife promptly did away with in its prologue. Wesker is in there somewhere, and I think Claire (Ali Larter) but don't hold me to that. I'm not invested enough to go back and be sure. Foggy memories seem to function best as it pertains to Resident Evil films.

 Now you have a better idea of my "long and storied history" with Resident Evil, and perhaps that give some context to why I think the fourth and fifth movies are gigantic turd sandwiches you don't need to see. Ever. 


 * I'm not kidding or being sarcastic about Death Race. I actually think it's the one good movie he's ever made, one that openly embraces its schlocky nature and is actually fun to watch. It is the antithesis of the type of movies Paul W.S. Anderson usually makes.

So You Won't Have To: Resident Evil - Retribution

 
 Cap'n Howdy has a long and storied history with the Resident Evil franchise, and while I'm not proud to say I've seen all five films (three of them theatrically), I have seen all five of the Paul W.S. Anderson VGINM* "adaptations" of the Resident Evil games. Now, until the character of Alice (Milla Jovovich) appears in a Resident Evil game, it's not actually an adaptation of any game so much as cramming in characters, monsters, and locations into a vaguely related story.

 As I mentioned in my Resident Evil: Afterlife review, the series is getting to the point where it's almost impossible to know what's going on if you haven't played the games. Afterlife, in particular, was chock full of unexplained plot elements you could only follow if you had finished Resident Evil 5, even though the movie itself had nothing to do with the story of Resident Evil 5. So while the movies don't bother copying the increasing theatrical nature of the games, "What Script" Anderson just takes things that wouldn't make any sense and using them as significant plot devices, like why returning hero Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory from Resident Evil: Apocalypse) is now a villain working for the eeeeeevil Umbrella Corporation.

 But it doesn't matter, I guess, because people that still come to see Resident Evil movies at this point are either slavish in their devotion to the series or want to see how much stupider the films can get. I can't help the first group, but for the people I know who make a habit of seeing these as an example of "how can they make it worse than the last one?" you can sit Resident Evil: Retribution out. I promise. Allow me to explain.

 Resident Evil: Retribution isn't a movie. Resident Evil: Retribution is a 95 minute trailer for whatever Anderson decides to call Resident Evil 6, since he already used up "Apocalypse," "Extinction," "Afterlife," and "Retribution."

 How is it not a movie, you ask? Well, a movie has a plot, generally speaking one with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Retribution is missing at the very least two of those, and the other bit barely qualifies as "story." Filler, maybe.

 There's no retribution in this "film," by the way, just a lot of recycling of elements from other Resident Evil movies, and the appearance of two characters from the games who hadn't yet been dragged into this mess, Leon Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand)**.

 Let's take a look at the "beginning" of the "story" of this "film": Retribution opens with the battle between Umbrella and Alice that Afterlife left as a cliffhanger already underway.

 Backwards.

 Yes, as in "played in reverse" and in slow motion in its entirety, until the helicopters approaching the boat Alice, Claire (Ali Larter) and Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller) were on at the end of the last movie. Then we pull back into a room full of monitors while Alice explains the last four movies to us (I'm not kidding) in order to catch us up to the battle we've already seen, which then plays out (in slow motion) but forwards this time.

 If that wasn't bad enough, after Alice is knocked into the water by a helicopter she causes to crash because we had to see the shotgun that fires quarters one more time, she wakes up in a suburban household with different hair. And she's now married to Carlos (Oded Fehr), but his name is Todd now, and they have a daughter, Becky (Arianna Engineer) who doesn't appear to be deaf but they still communicate with through sign language.

 None of that really matters because this is all a prelude to Paul W.S. Anderson's remake of the opening of Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead. Why? Because the Resident Evil films are in theory based on the Resident Evil games which were, at one point, about zombies. So we need zombies attacking the suburbs, zombies who run fast and break down doors and cause cars to crash and explode in almost exactly the same way that it happens in Dawn of the Dead. Because people liked that, right?

 Almost everything that happens in Resident Evil: Retribution seems to be based on that idea. People liked seeing zombies attack, and they liked the big guy with the hammer / axe from the last movie. They loved the Licker, so that's in there too. And hey, let's bring back Michelle Rodriguez (Rain), Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Oded Fehr (Carlos), Boris Kodjoe (Luther West), Bingbing Le (Ada Wong), Colin Salmon (James "One" Shade) and The Red Queen, played by a different little girl than in the first film although I honestly thought they just made a shitty digital version of the effect from the first film.

 Oh, and Wesker (Shawn Roberts) is back, but this time he's a good guy.

 "But didn't Shade die in the first movie? Don't they show him dying during the exposition scene in Retribution?"

 Hey! I told you that it wasn't necessary to see this movie and you did it anyway?

 Well, then you know that it involves clones - thousands and thousands of clones, and not just clones of Alice - that was the pointless subplot in Extinction and Afterlife. In addition to creating the T Virus, the Umbrella Corporation also runs underground facilities that can replicate Tokyo, Moscow, New York City, and "Suburbia" to run "doomsday scenarios" using clones of virtually every major cast member you remember from previous Resident Evil films.

 With the exception, it would seem, of Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, or Mike Epps***. They must have been busy that day.

 They developed this facility in an abandoned Russian submarine factory so they could film these scenarios and sell their bioweapons to global superpowers, thus creating the zombie apocalypse that we hear about all the time but rarely see. Seriously, if you think The Walking Dead is short on scale and scope, most Resident Evil movies take place in Umbrella facilities with white light paneled walls. Almost ALL of Retribution takes place in this environment.

 Now, this might just be me, but it seems like a MASSIVE waste of resources to clone thousands of people in gigantic underground facilities just to demonstrate your T Virus turns people into zombies with tentacle mouths, but how else are you going to explain to the producers why you need to film in Moscow, Tokyo, and (maybe) New York City?

 And now we come to the "plot," a term I use loosely because when you "adapt" a video game into a movie, that means you can leave out the "we need to get through this stage and this stage so we can rendezvous with this team and escape before the timer runs down and the facility blows up." Paul W.S. Anderson clearly missed that part of screenwriting 101, so that's literally what Alice and Ada Wong have to do - clear the "New York" and "Suburbia" sections of the Umbrella facility to meet Leon, Barry, Luther, and some other Red Shirts in the Moscow stage.

 That's it. Jill and clones of characters are in hot pursuit but none of them can die until our heroes get to the elevator, and a Licker shows up. Oh, and Ada and Alice have to fight TWO of the huge guys with hammer axes, because that's twice as cool, right?

 Now I'm going to ask some reasonable questions that aren't answered in Resident Evil: Retribution.

 Why is Wesker helping Alice? How did Umbrella attach the brainwashing mechanism to Jill? How did Luther escape from the tunnels in the last film and end up recruited by Ada's team? Why does Alice feel the need to bring along the clone of her nonexistent daughter other than to make part of Retribution also a ripoff of Aliens? Why does the Los Plagas virus now create zombie soldiers wearing Russian Infantry uniforms? Why are those zombie soldiers more interested in shooting people than eating them?

 If evil Michelle Rodriguez clone can punch people hard enough that we get an ESPN Sports Science-style CGI shot of broken bones and that also causes your heart to stop, why is Alice able to get up but Luther is (presumably) killed? If Wesker had the ability to restore Alice's superpowers at the end of the film when she gets to the White House, why didn't he have Ada inject her with it in the underground facility? Wouldn't that make their escape MUCH EASIER? In fact, since Wesker also still has his stupid super powers, why does he even need Alice to be the "ultimate weapon"? He took her powers away in the first place, and apparently decided that she needed them back when he took over as President of the United States? What the fuck is going on in this movie?

 Anyway, so Alice gets her powers back, Jill is returned to normal, and everything we spent the last hour and a half watching is basically undone. They go to the White House where Wesker is preparing for "humanity's final stand." There's an obviously digital camera pull-back that shows monsters preparing to attack Washington D.C., and we cut to black. That's it, movie's over. See you for Resident Evil: The Alamo or something like that.

 Imagine, if you will, that The Two Towers left out everything related to Helm's Deep until the last ten minutes of the film, then cut to the Orcs and Uruk-hai marching to the walls and preparing to attack, and then Peter Jackson stopped the movie right there. No battle, not this time. Sorry guys, it's been 90 minutes and my shift is over. We should totally get together and finish this in like two years. You cool with that?

 Okay, please stop punching me for comparing Resident Evil to The Lord of the Rings and answer the question.

 You aren't? Well, I'm sure you won't remember how you paid twenty bucks to see a 90 minute trailer when the next movie comes out. Why don't you go rent Death Race when you get home? That movie was fun, right? And Event Horizon! You always trot that out when people say "Paul W.S. Anderson never made a good movie in his life!" Now you guys make sure to buy the 3D Blu-Ray next month so you can relive when Alice shot the quarters at that pilots face again!

 So yeah. Maybe this So You Won't Have To review is suddenly causing you to NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT NOW, but I can assure you that it's a waste of your time. What the previous paragraphs don't convey is how tedious, unengaging, and perfunctory the "action" in this "action movie" are. Not only does it not make any sense, but like almost all of Paul W.S. Anderson's films, it can't even be vexing in an entertaining fashion. It's just lifeless and bland, and it makes me long for the terrible yet gonzo charm of Ghost Rider.

 Yeah. Ghost Rider. Get it now? That's why I watched Resident Evil: Retribution.  

 So You Won't Have To.


 * Video Game in Name, Mostly
 ** To be fair, I didn't realize that was who Durand was playing until he pulled out his signature pistol, RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED.
*** Maybe you can't be cloned if you were eaten by zombie crows.

A Retro So You Won't Have To: Alien Vs. Predator

 I know that you've seen it around, sometimes on sale even, and you've thought to yourself "self, I know that nobody speaks highly of this movie, but dammit, it has aliens AND predators, and Lance Henriksen, and even though Paul W.S. Anderson's only watchable movie is that remake / sequel Death Race, I just want to kick back with some beers and see what all of the hoopla is about."* Folks, let me tell you that even though Prometheus has taken Alien Resurrection's place as "franchise punching bag" for dubious reasons, that's only because Alien and Predator fans banded together to collectively ignore AvP and AvP:R (for Requiem, not just for the "R" rating). This is for the best, but if I need to help keep you away, I will...

 So, here's the reason you see Alien vs Predator (AvP) and its sequel in the "bargain" bin so often, why it isn't included in the Alien Anthology or the... well, there isn't really a Predator boxed set yet, but it is the first film's 25th anniversary this year. Anyway, they sit out there in the $5.99-9.99 price range because nobody wants them. It's not even an issue of having seen it once and then not needing to see it again, because halfway through the movie my friends got up for a cigarette break. The poster's accidentally appropriate tagline says it all: "whoever wins... we lose." Boy do we ever...

 Okay, let's go ahead and wipe out any possible positives: Yes, Lance Henriksen (Aliens) does appear as Charles Bishop Weyland, who runs the Weyland corporation in 2004** but is dying of... cancer? (Sorry, I went to look that up and it's not clear on IMDB or Wikipedia.) Anyway, one of his satellites finds a thermal image of what appears to be a pyramid structure on an island north of Antarctica. He assembles a team, they go down to find out that Predators use the temple for "rite of passage" rituals where they keep a Xenomorph Queen in captivity and fight its offspring. Weyland dies. Spoiler. Also, he briefly plays the "knife" game from Aliens with a pen while on the way to the island.

 AvP isn't really about Weyland so much as it is about guide Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), who manages to befriend one of the Predators so they can fight the xenomorphs and defeat the queen in a scene that reminded me of the T-Rex chase in Jurassic Park. Then they have a tender moment where more people in the audience than just the Cap'n and friends were yelling "kiss!" to the screen. Also there are some other scientists, archeologists, and Spud from Trainspotting. Most of them die.

 While there is an "extended," "unrated" version of the film, it's still pretty much the same toothless version that played in theaters with a PG-13. Anderson brings to AvP what he brought to Resident Evil, which is to say lots of dark scenes with uninteresting characters saying stupid things, and a Xenomorph, Predator, or Facehugger will jump out and something stupid will happen. I feel bad giving so much crap to "What Script?" Anderson, because when you see him in interviews he's clearly a guy excited to be making the movies he makes, and he has a real enthusiasm that makes you want him to succeed. But he almost never does, and AvP is not the exception (as I said, that's Death Race, which is exactly the kind of "dumb" that he needed to reach for).

 It's been 8 years since we paid money to see Alien vs Predator (no relation to the comic book) and in all that time I've only seen snippets of the movie since, usually on TV. It's the kind of movie that can play on the Syfy Channel because they don't need to cut anything. It's just a sort of bland, by the numbers horror / action movie that adds nothing to the Alien or Predator series. It does end with a chestburster coming out of the Predator who missed his shot at making out with an Earth chick, so you get to see a Predalien. I'm told that it's in the sequel, but I couldn't be bothered to watch it. I think I did you enough of a favor watching the first one. It's not worth even five to ten dollars, or even a rental. You're better of watching Death Race. Actually, you know what? I'm not even going to dismissively recommend Death Race instead of AvP - you'll have more fun watching Death Race, so see that instead.



 * That's what I would think to myself. Does everybody not have that thought process?
 ** Interesting tidbit for people who hope the AvP movies don't count in Alien continuity: technically speaking, Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland appearing at a 2032 TED talk would be old enough to be the son of Charles Bishop Weyland and according to the Weyland Industries timeline, he would have been 14 when Alien vs. Predator took place. So AvP is still "canon." Sorry.

A So You Won't Have To Special: Defending the Indefensible

 I still feel pretty bad about being so mean to Blood Runs Cold on Friday. Sure, it's not a good movie, but the people who made it clearly were doing the best they could to make a horror movie that offered something new. I happened to think that what they did really didn't work in the second half of the film, and yeah I maybe was a little hung up on the "we're trying to fool you and make you think this isn't a Swedish film" angle, but they gave it a go.

 While it's in no way comparable (and probably even less fair), the Cap'n thought he might stand up for some movies that totally don't deserve it. Like in a million years don't deserve having anyone go to bat for them, but that's what I do. I'll defend these pieces of shit So You Won't Have To. You can continue hating on them, disparaging them, and feel confident that Cap'n Howdy took the "Devil's Advocate" argument - and probably lost.

 Speaking of which, let's start with

 The Devil's Advocate - It's a study in methods of over and under acting. Maybe even extreme over and under acting on the part of the film's two leads - Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. People tend to remember Pacino hamming it up more from Scent of a Woman, but he's so far over the top by the end of The Devil's Advocate that one is willing to overlook the fact that Keanu Reeves' southern accent has completely disappeared. Oh, and there's the wall of writhing naked people and Reeves blowing his brains out. What's not to love, right?

 Shit Coffin -Okay, so let's ignore everything that the writers, producers, and director have to say about this brainless remake of Friday the 13th. Instead of listening to their idiotic explanations of why Shit Coffin is scary or paying homage or any of that crap, let's try Professor Murder's explanation of the film. Shit Coffin is a comedic deconstruction of slasher movie stereotypes wrapped in a slick exterior designed to trick modern horror audiences into thinking they aren't watching subversive entertainment. Yeah, that's the ticket. If you squint and turn your head juuuuust the right way, it almost makes sense.

 Horror of the Blood Monsters - So what if the Cap'n has never finished Horror of the Blood Monsters (also known as Vampire Men from the Lost Planet). That doesn't mean that something REALLY AMAZING is waiting just beyond the twenty minute mark. In fact, I bet there is, and shame on me for depriving myself of that experience. Shame on me indeed.

 Blade Trinity - Heh, well, the thing is, you see... there's Triple H flipping the bird at the sun. That's something, right? And Ryan Reynolds is constantly cracking jokes, well after they're funny to anyone in the film or the audience. And for some reason people speak Esperanto and watch Incubus and Patton Oswalt plays basketball. That all happens. Blade? Who's Blade? Wesley Snipes is in that movie? No way!

 Resident Evil - Well... there wouldn't be a Resident Evil Apocalypse without it. That's as far as I'm willing to go.

 Night of the Living Dead 3-D - Sid Haig gotta eat. In 3-D if possible.

 The Exorcist II: The Heretic - Okay, you got me. I have nothing. There's nothing in this film I can really apologize for, or make a case for, or anything that isn't just weird for the sake of weirdness. Go ahead, explain to me what James Earl Jones is doing in this film. Please.

Spoiler of the Day: Event Horizon

 The Event Horizon's experimental black hole generator caused the ship to intersect with a hell dimension, unleashing some variety of alien evil that turned the ship sentient and killed the crew. The crew of the Lewis and Clark are picked off by the Event Horizon, and while they attempt to destroy the ship, they find themselves trapped aboard half of the Horizon, using it as a lifeboat. A rescue ship finds the surviving crewmembers in stasis, but the Event Horizon appears to still have some evil left in its gears...



Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Death Bed - The Bed That Eats

Retro Review: The Mission Valley Years

editor's note: while it may not appear to do so at first, this Retro Review will cover Payback, Idle Hands, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 8mm, Resident Evil, Last Action Hero, Jeepers Creepers, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Jurassic Park III, Lethal Weapon 4, The Matrix, American Pie 2, and Vanilla Sky.

From 1998 to 2002, there were many adventures at Mission Valley, a six screen multiplex in Raleigh. Sure, you could go to Imperial, which was closer, but there was an allure to Mission Valley, a theatre I'd been going to since childhood. Maybe the fact that there was a coffee place next door and a Record Exchange next to that. Or the North American Video not far away from the Rock-O-La Cafe, but Mission Valley was our home away from home when The Studio closed*.

At first, it was just that the dimly lit lobby was preferable to the bright, shiny, headache-inducing competition from Park Place 16, the new multiplex with its "stadium seating" and 25 cent summers (although we took advantage of that, too), but Mission Valley also had cheaper tickets, better popcorn, and "bladder busters" - the biggest damned drink cups in town, at a price that beat their megaplex competitors. Situated near NC State's campus, Mission Valley felt like a movie theatre instead of a conglomerated "big box" multiplex, so we gravitated towards it. Mission Valley eventually became the theatre that owners of The Rialto and Colony theatres replaced The Studio with, and while the others lean towards more "art house" fare, Mission Valley provided Hollywood fun at college-friendly prices.

While it's technically out of the year range listed above, I'd like to point out that I saw Last Action Hero at Mission Valley, and at the age of 14, it still seemed odd that the auditorium only had seven people inside (including my brother) on opening day.

The real fun kicked in during high school, as Waverly Place and Imperial slowly lost their appeal to the more fun Mission Valley. While we saw some of the "bigger" films of the late 90s and early 2000s (The Blair Witch Project, Godzilla, Lost in Space, The Fellowship of the Rings, There's Something About Mary) elsewhere, my favorite memories are tied to the lesser, but sometimes more enjoyable films.

Films like Payback, the film that would later become a comparison point for anything we hated, based on a casual response to seeing the film later that summer: "Yeah, I'd see Payback again." It was what we told everyone after watching the wretched 8mm, one of many films that could have benefited from Nicolas Cage's "Mega-Acting" but instead lumbered forward with leaden direction from Joel Schumacher. When anyone asked about 8mm, we responded with an affirmative "Yeah, I'd see Payback again."

There are a jumble of events, some tied to Idle Hands, some to Lethal Weapon 4, that I can't quite disentangle. One of the two resulted in "gum for the peasants," after we found a bin of Wrigley's gum in the lobby and dispensed them to the people waiting in line outside. The other involved a bin full of clown noses and a Patch Adams poster that two people may or may not have tried to swipe, only to stop when the assistant manager yelled "Stop!"

What I can remember is that we generally enjoyed Lethal Weapon 4 and left Idle Hands asking "now whose idea was it to see Idle Hands?" I've seen half of the former since, and none of the latter. I couldn't tell you much about Idle Hands, other than Seth Green was a zombie or something to that effect, I think he had a bottle in his head, and Devon Sawa had to save Jessica Alba from his(?) evil, severed(?) hand. That's about it.

The memories come in fits and spurts: laughing out loud when Keanu Reeves said "Whoa! I know Kung Fu" in The Matrix; spoiling The Phantom Menace for someone by pointing out the fact that since Liam Neeson's character has never been mentioned in any Star Wars film he was going to die; my total disdain for the "kid friendly" tropes of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, where no main character was remotely in danger at any point and the hero murders someone and doesn't think twice about it; realizing that American Pie 2 was a steep drop-off from the first film; and catching a not-even-veiled reference to the film Vanilla Sky was a remake of, Abre los Ojos.

At a certain point, a few of us entered what I can only describe as the "MST3K" phase of movie-going, and embarrassing period where we were nearly thrown out of multiple auditoriums. This was no more evident than during Jeepers Creepers, a film that begins knocking off The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and only gets worse from there. We were heckling loudly, and someone complained, bringing the manager down to let us know we'd better shut up or be escorted out of the theatre. Of course, once the rest of the audience realized what they were actually watching, we sat quietly while they berated the movie.

The chatter didn't seem to borrow anyone during Paul "What Script?" Anderson's Resident Evil, a movie only surpassed in its crapitude by Resident Evil: Afterlife; we were not kind, but the film deserved its ridicule. Of course, seeing Resident Evil, Jeepers Creepers, Dungeons and Dragons, The In Crowd, and Highlander: Endgame only strengthened the theory that the Cap'n and friends would go see literally any horrible movie released in theatres (which, for 2000-2002 was probably true).

The last anecdote doesn't so much cover Jurassic Park III (a mostly forgettable film) as what followed it: a friend of mine was driving me home, and I don't think it's unfair to characterize him at that period as a "functioning alcoholic." He had two beers - one was open, one wasn't - and I trusted him to safely deliver me back, until we pulled right into a police stop, or "drunk trap." He, being underage at the time, panicked, and in his infinite wisdom opted to pour both bottles on the floorboard of his truck, so that the open containers of alcohol were at least empty. As you can gather, it didn't help, and while he went downtown, I drove a truck smelling strongly of alcohol home, and then picked him up several hours later outside the county jail. Comparatively speaking, I can tell you that the pterodactyl in Jurassic Park III looked ridiculous, and that the velociraptors had feathers. I guess that's a little better than Idle Hands.

I still don't know who picked Idle Hands, but for once, it wasn't me.


* The Studio, as I might have mentioned, was the closest thing Raleigh had to a "Grindhouse" theatre when I was a teenager. It was there I saw Trainspotting, Trees Lounge, The Faculty, and The Funeral.

2010 Year End Recap, Part Two

An important note from the Cap'n: While every review available is included as a link, the placement of the film on these "year end" lists may not appear to reflect the review. As time passes, I have the opportunity to reconsider films, revisit initial reactions, and every now and then, change the way I feel about movies.

Let's continue not with the top, but the bottom. Originally, I thought there would only be one or two truly awful films I saw in 2010, but revisiting this year's reviews, that was not to be the case. If Tron Legacy was the last movie I could (weakly) say I didn't hate, then just imagine how bad the following ten films are. When the Cap'n says "NEVER AGAIN," I hope you grasp the magnitude of the cinematic dreck that follows.

Whenever possible, I have included links to the original reviews, indicated with an asterisk (*) films that technically had screenings in 2009, and expanded on why I will do my best never to watch these films again.

Alice in Wonderland - Tron Legacy barely got a pass for its visual palette, but the Tim Burton Players Present Alice's Adventures in Narnia doesn't. Not only is this not reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Alice novels, but the sense of whimsy one might hope from Tim Burton is replaced with a dour, joyless adventure story about slaying the drag- er, Jabberwocky. The dirty trick I played with this review in April is better than anything you'll find in this inexplicably popular film.

The Wolfman - That's right: I say in the review "neither loves nor hates," but I'm also never going to watch the movie again.

The Descent Part 2 - What a difference watching this movie with a like-minded audience can make. When I first watched The Descent Part 2 - a wholly unnecessary sequel - the fact that it was marginally coherent and pretty gory was enough for the Cap'n. The second time (at Summer Fest III) we slogged through the bad writing, awful lighting, rotten acting was only partially redeemed by the gore. And the gore is pretty good; The Descent Part 2 was not, and twice is enough.

Faster - Again, it has a "So You Won't Have To" tag on it. Faster billed itself as a stripped-down revenge film, then delivered anything but.

From here on out, things get rather vitriolic.

Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film* - This was a late addition to the list, which is why there's no review. Also, the documentary doesn't deserve one: Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue is a freshman level analysis of horror films through a sociological lens, often coming to erroneous (or ridiculous) assertions about changes in the genre over the 20th century. My personal favorite? How about comparing Leatherface in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake to Osama Bin Laden, based on the specious logic that he can "disappear and reappear on a whim, keeping us in a constant state of terror," which describes almost every horror boogeyman, including all of the ones that existed before Osama Bin Laden declared war on America. The grossest offense this documentary makes is to copy the structure of David Skal's The Monster Show, which does a much better job laying out the case that horror films reflect social movements.

Survival of the Dead* - I should have learned my lesson with the terrible Diary of the Dead, but curiosity (and positive reviews) got the better of me, and I went back to the George well. Not the George Lucas well, which gets the lion's share of complaints, but George A. Romero hasn't made a film that's remotely watchable for the last five years, and he's been working exclusively in his beloved "living dead" territory. If Diary's insulting, obvious narration wasn't bad enough, Survival's wafer thin characters and idiotic "Irish Cowboy" feud plot bored me to no end. For people who complain about Land of the Dead, I can't imagine how you found this drivel watchable.

Kick-Ass - Okay, so while I don't love Scott Pilgrim, I at least understand why people might. Fan favorite Kick-Ass fails to deliver on ANY level, from its "superheroes in real life" premise to its obnoxious protagonist or the totally pointless Hit Girl. Matthew Vaughn kills the only remotely interesting character, Nicolas Cage's Big Daddy, and ensured that not only would I ever watch his film again, but I'm definitely going to see Kick-Ass 2.

Cop Out - There are only three films I've never finished: Horror of the Blood Monsters, Neil LaBute's remake of The Wicker Man, and Cop Out. You can, therefore, only imagine how insufferable, unfunny, and ineptly constructed Cop Out must be that despite the presence of Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Sean William Scott, Jason Lee, Michelle Trachtenberg, Guillermo Diaz, and Kevin Pollak, I couldn't bear to sit through more than thirty minutes. The best I could muster for this skid mark on the underwear of Buddy Cop Comedies was a brief footnote at the end of The Other Guys.

A Nightmare on Elm Street - I shouldn't even have to tell you how much I hated this soulless, money-grubbing waste of ninety minutes. Every possible positive is squandered, including seemingly novel ideas like "micro naps" and the suggestion that Fred Krueger might be innocent, are squandered in order for cheap scares that aren't scary. That two of my favorite movies of 2010 feature the "stars" of this wretched film - Rooney Mara and Jackie Earle Haley - saddens me further. I always swear off of Platinum Dunes films, and I really should have learned my lesson after Shit Coffin, but if that title is appropriate for their Friday the 13th molestation, Shit Coffin 2 doesn't properly prepare audiences for what they do to Freddy Krueger.

And yet, A Nightmare on Elm Street is not the worst movie I saw in 2010. That honor goes to:

Resident Evil: Afterlife (in 3-D) - I'm not going to spit more bile at this worthless, lifeless, pointless sequel. Instead, I genuinely want for someone to explain to me how, in any way, the fourth Resident Evil film, the return of Paul "What Script?" Anderson to the director's chair, is good? Even the moderate pans of Resident Evil: Afterlife on Blu-Ray claim the film is still watchable. How? Even better, I'd like one of the vocal fans of this movie, the people who bragged its opening weekend silenced the "haterz," to walk me through how, in any way, this film doesn't fail at every single thing it tries, from the 3-D to the action to the impenetrable story. Make your case, please. People want to give this movie a pass, even when they hated it, and this movie does not deserve it. Never Again.


Tomorrow, we'll look on the bright side of life, and I'll discuss my favorite films of 2010. See you then.

From the Vaults: Guest Blogger - The Cranpire

Our "From the Vaults" for the third Tuesday in November is a compilation of Cranpire-riffic guest spots on the Blogorium. If you've never had the experience of meeting Mr. Patrick Cranpire, this will give you a taste:

Today I think I'll let Mr. Cranpire take care of business. That dude knows way more about movies than I do. Here he is:

It takes dirt and sun to make the shit grow. It takes mutha fuckin' Cranpire to start the show. The Cap'n is now "sleeping" and may not wake for some time. So I will tell you his lies. He changes the time stamp on his blogs so that it appears that he wrties a blog each and every day or normal 24 hour period.

Tonight I am going to be Patrick not Cranpire. This is a side many of you do not see very often.

The Dark Knight was awesome, Heath Ledger was awesome. But here is my point. While filming this movie and after filming ended Ledger was supposedly "haunted by the Joker". So does that make Heath Ledger a bad actor. Yes. I am not saying that his performance was poor, I am saying that he was bad at being an actor. He should have been able to separate himself form the character. There have been many intense, demented and horrifying roles played by many and actor. I can not think of another instance of this happening. If you can let me know. Thank you for your time.

Before I took out the Cap'n he requested that I speak about movies, specifically Death Race. We just finished it and is good. All the things that were said about this film are true. You will not be bored, your questions will be answer and yes people drive cars with the intention of both winning and killing the fellow races. That is all I will say about this movie other than you should watch it.

The Cap'n just briefly woke up and mentioned a conversation about an actor we had. His name is Lochlyn Munro. You more than likely do not know who he is and therefore can not appreciate his talent. Dead Man on Campus is the easiest way for me to get you on ball. He is the crazy guy who, well, goes crazy. That is your starting point and you better pick up the scent and follow it till it goes cold.

I am going to finish this shit up. But I will lead you with this. Do not let stupidity stand.

So You Won't Have To: Resident Evil - Afterlife (in 3-D)

Folks, I know what you're thinking. Before the chants of "no duh, of COURSE Resident Evil: Afterlife" was a waste of time from start to finish, allow me to make my case. I hated Resident Evil, and I haven't been able to watch even part of it since the first, unfortunate, time. Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction are loud, stupid, vapid entertainment, but at least they succeed in entertaining on some level. The sequels are the kind of films you feel bad having watched and hesitate to tell your friends about, but as high budget schlock goes, you get what you pay for. I've certainly seen better made films that were less amusing.

Resident Evil: Afterlife, on the other hand, was a waste of time, money, and brain cells.

Of course, the missing link in all of this is why Resident Evil Apocalypse and Extinction work and the first and fourth films do not: Apocalypse and Extinction were written by Paul W.S. Anderson, but not directed by him. Resident Evil and Afterlife were written and directed by the same hack that brought us Soldier, Event Horizon, Alien vs. Predator, and Mortal Kombat. To date, the only movie he's made that I found remotely re-watchable was a remake / sequel to Death Race 2000, which works in spite of his inability to tell a story visually.

For a horror / action / video game movie, Anderson fails to generate any tension, atmosphere, or scares. This shouldn't have been a big surprise to me, since he's never been able to do that, but I thought the sheer desperation of 3-D would provide some chuckles. Instead, the 3-D gimmickry is used for no apparent reason other than to demonstrate how the pointless use of technology can be in the hands of a creatively bankrupt "auteur" (by the fourth time Alice shoots someone with a shotgun full of quarters and the coins fly at you, the gimmick has lost even a rudimentary charm). When James Cameron said this:

I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip.

I really wish he'd been addressing Resident Evil: Afterlife 3-D, because unlike Piranha (which it was directed at), RE:A actually utilizes Cameron's specially developed technology, cameras, and projection methods. But it's all gimmick, servicing a film that barely has a plot and is most certainly deserving of the "bottom of the barrel of their creativity" moniker.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is an incoherent mess of a narrative. For what it's worth, the Cap'n will try to explain what passes for a plot:

Alice (Milla Jovovich) is continuing her assault on the Umbrella Corporation, headed by Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts). Umbrella was responsible for unleashing the T-Virus, which turned most of humanity into bloodthirsty zombies. After Wesker foils the attempt by Alice and her clones (it's a holdover from the end of Extinction), Alice escapes and seeks out Arcadia, the "last refuge for non-infected survivors," but instead finds Claire Redfield (Ali Larter, reprising her role from Extinction) with some sort of jewel on her chest that stole her memories and renders her semi-feral. Alice and Claire fly down to Los Angeles from Alaska for some reason, land on a prison where survivors have holed themselves up, including former sports star Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), Hollywood Agent Bennett (Kim Coates), and soldier / prisoner Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller). They then discover that Arcadia is a boat, have to wander around the prison, and discover Arcadia's horrible secret just in time for the final boss fight, followed by an obligatory tease for an epic battle between our heroes and former "good" character Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), who has a jewel on her chest.

See how that sounds more like a synopsis? There's no overriding story or motivation for much of anything that happens in Afterlife. At the points in the film where exposition is desperately needed, or connective tissue would make all the difference in the world, W.S. simply dissolves, cuts away, or jumps ahead without bothering how, why, or even what it means for the characters to move from one point to the next. Bennett, for reasons of plot convenience, steals Alice's plane and lands on Arcadia. By the time we next see him, he's working for Wesker and looks like he's been infected with... something. Only Anderson never bothered to get around to that part of the plot. It's enough that we know he's EEEEEEEVIILLLL now, so that his death at the hands of Wesker is semi-ironic.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is astonishingly willing to leave audience members behind. The first film, while narratively sluggish, insulting, and utterly without tension, at least made sure the audience had some idea who the characters were and why anyone should care about them. Apocalypse and Extinction went the next step and periodically integrated characters from the games with some modicum of personality. Afterlife has no such interest: Chris Redfield (a fairly major character in the series) is introduced in a way that doesn't make sense (he's being held in a makeshift cell in the bottom of a PRISON!) and the when's and why's of his release and relation to Claire Redfield are irrelevant. He's really just there so that Claire and Alice have someone else to fight Wesker with. The point at which Claire goes from not remembering that Chris is her brother to being best pals isn't something we're privy to; it's only important that Alice saves them in time to shoot Wesker, Boondock Saints style (pay attention to that; it'll come back later!).

Speaking of which, if you haven't played Resident Evil 5, almost nothing about the character of Wesker is going to make sense (he has a cameo in Extinction, but otherwise is introduced wholesale in the film). The easy argument is that "you probably won't be seeing the movie unless you play Resident Evil," but the truth is that you can easily watch the first three films without knowing anything about the games and do just fine. Not so here.

What you can do, however, is marvel at a section of the movie where Alice, Chris, and dispensable female character (Kacey Barnfield) need to travel underwater through the prison in order get to the secret military armory. I guess it's supposed to be tense, but Anderson is such a terrible director that all of the shots are close-ups on the characters faces, or mid-shots where they appear to be WALKING underwater. They also hold their breaths for what I'd consider to be an unreasonably long time, but who cares, right? They also come out of the water and are able to fire their weapons with no problem at the dozens of zombies they somehow missed while walking underwater.

Meanwhile, Claire and Luther are standing at the prison gate as a Axeman (that's what the character is listed as), a giant wielding a half axe / half spiked mallet is pounding away at the only thing keeping hundreds of zombies out. Considering that it takes five minutes before they make any effort to stop him at all, it should come as no surprise that he appears just in time for a mid-level Boss Fight with Claire and Alice, which is really just an excuse for more "quarters in your face!" 3-D shenanigans.

Professor Murder was so disgusted with Afterlife that he took his glasses off halfway through the film and announced "It's sad when I have to say that Troy Duffy (The Boondock Saints) would have made this a more entertaining movie than this piece of shit." I'm astonished by the level of enthusiasm for Afterlife on IMDB's boards, because I can't understand how anyone would be willing to put aside a movie where nothing works at all (down to the 2003-esque score by Tomanandy and seven year-old A Perfect Circle song remixed with the title of the second Resident Evil movie).

It's not often when I can't find anything nice to say about a movie, but Resident Evil: Afterlife sucks. It just sucks, for all the reasons listed above and many more. I was bored well before the film was over, and both of us were angry we wasted time watching this movie. Paul "What Script" Anderson, there's no chance I'll ever pay for another one of your movies, and especially not the idiotic sequel that's no so much implied as assured in the credits. This puppy learned his lesson, and that lesson is you couldn't make a movie to save your life.

2008 Belated Recap: 5 Movies You Should See But Haven't.

The Cap'n, despite a hectic schedule involving way too much reading and blackboard-ing, does continue to watch movies. Not as much or as frequently as I'd like to, but I had been putting off this column in the instance I saw something that really stood out. But as I'm still only halfway through City of Ember and I started watching it, like, Saturday, holding off on this column could take forever.

Besides, I have five movies already that I know not enough of you have seen. Many haven't seen them at all, and so I'll propose a trade: you watch ALL FIVE of these movies and I will make a concerted effort to watch films that won Oscars still in theatres. Sound fair?

Don't be surprised if this entire list of comprised of movies I've gushed over in the past. I rarely give up on something I think you REALLY should see, and it's criminal how at least four of these movies just slid under the radar.

Oh, and #5: I mean it. I'll qualify why when we get there, but I was pleasantly surprised, both times I saw it.


1. Redbelt - How this vanished from everyone's radar is a crime. It's a damn shame that only the David Mamet faithful caught wind of this exceptional neo-noir. I don't even know when / if it played here, but when it arrived on dvd I brought it home and instantly wished I'd seen it sooner.

David Mamet makes movies in fits and bursts, kind of like Jim Jarmusch. For a while there, he was going back to back with The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Heist, and State and Main. Then he took some downtime and came back with a story I can only closely approximate my saying "what if David Mamet made his version of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai?" Take the warrior's code, insert it into a intricately designed neo-noir that zigs when you expect zags.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity) is fantastic as Mike Terry, a jujitsu instructor slowly drawn into the world of mixed martial arts fighting against his will. Mike, like Ghost Dog, adheres to his code of conduct and refuses to compromise his principles, no matter how rough it gets. And this is David Mamet, so it gets pretty heavy. Ricky Jay, David Paymer, Randy Couture, Emily Mortimer, and Alice Braga also do some great work, but the big surprise is Tim Allen's small role as a catalyst for Mike's entrance to MMA.

Even if you think you know where Redbelt is going, the movie is likely to surprise you, and why more people haven't seen this baffles me. This is Mamet in top form, surprisingly vulgarity-lite, but entirely appropriate for the subject manner. See it.

2. Man on Wire - Now that the film has an Oscar for Best Documentary, I imagine many of you are queue-ing it up, and well you should.

One of the things that fascinates me about Man on Wire, aside from the way it just lets the participants tell the story, is how the weight of history hangs on this film. The story of Phillipe Petit sneaking into the World Trade Center, setting up a wire between the two buildings, and then walking it one August morning in 1975 is amazing enough. And yet, it's impossible to watch this movie and not have 9/11 in the backdrop, even though the film never mentions it.

Watching the construction of the Towers, the footage of the new buildings, especially from the roof is occasionally disarming. There's a shot in the beginning of the foundation of the Towers that could be mistaken for footage from 2001-02. And yet, Man on Wire is strong enough that the whimsy of Petit and his all consuming desire to pull off this impossible feat overcome the strangeness of seeing the Twin Towers again.

Man on Wire incorporates some shaky "re-enactment" footage in the narrative, but before long, it shifts to actual film footage Petit and his friends made while wire walking Notre Dame, in Sydney, Australia, and tests preparing for New York. It really is something to see come together, and it's a story that isn't terribly well known, somehow.

3. In Bruges - The Oscars undersold all of the films nominated for writing with those terrible clips, but In Bruges is a film that's very difficult to see out of context. It's not wrong to assume it's a crime comedy, because in many ways it is, but what I love about the film is how is transitions seamlessly from comedy to caper to thriller and even drama. And it never feels inauthentic.

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell own this movie, which is something else you don't get from the trailers. Yes, Ralph Fiennes figures prominently into the film, and his appearance in the third act is memorable for a number of reasons, but it isn't his movie. In Bruges is a movie about two criminals sent to "cool off" after something simple goes very, very wrong. One of them is relatively new, and the other is old hat in the game, but both of them recognize the gravity of what happened.

Gleeson anchors most of the movie, but Farrell has to sell a character arc you don't see coming until a mid-film flashback. Part of why I love this film so much is that when it shifts, Farrell never makes it feel inauthentic. He's better in this movie than I can remember, maybe ever. Do check it out.

4. Appaloosa - Ed Harris reunites with Viggo Mortenson after A History of Violence and directs a different kind of western. The town of Appaloosa has a problem: Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), a man who claims to have connections to President Chester A. Arthur, and uses that clout to do whatever he wants with his gang. When Bragg kills the Sherriff and his deputies in cold blood, the city officials agree to turn Appaloosa over to Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Mortenson), hired guns who bring order to chaos.

That's the set up, the first fifteen minutes or so. Most Westerns would be content simply to build up to the inevitable showdown, but Harris has more in mind. Appaloosa has a number of interesting developments and twists that keeps an already interesting movie fresh. You'd also expect more violence in a film about hired guns and rowdy gangs, but Ed Harris is more interested in exploring the relationship between Virgil and Everett with Bragg hovering outside.

Appaloosa is nothing like 3:10 to Yuma, nor is it like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. What Appaloosa is, though, turns out to be a distillation of western conventions told in a leisurely, unique manner. If you're a fan of any names you've seen above, or Timothy Spall, Lance Henriksen, or Renee Zelwegger, please check this out.

5. Death Race - I know. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It would take a LOT for me to speak kindly of a Paul W.S. Anderson movie, but I'll be damned if Death Race isn't entertaining. This movie doesn't really bother to remake Death Race 2000 (in fact, if you pay attention, it might be a sequel) or have any clever moments of social commentary. Instead, Anderson strips everything away, removes pretense, and settles on incomprehensible exploitation.

Here's the thing with incomprehensible exploitation for me: If you can do it in a way that entertains, I'm going to be much kinder. Death Race does so many inexplicably stupid things: suggesting a character is gay for no reason relevant to the story, ripping off every bad "prison movie" convention, an introduction that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, flagrantly breaking the fourth wall. Yet, somehow this stupid little movie, comprised of one bad idea after the other, manages to make you chuckle and get over things that should never get a pass.

Death Race is the kind of movie that tells you what's going to happen and then does it, but it does it in such a ridiculous manner that I can't hate it. I tried, both times. Maybe it's Jason Statham, who takes the most retarded plot twists seriously, or Joan Allen (clearly looking for a paycheck) chewing scenery as the MOST EVIL WARDEN EVER, or the inexplicable quality of the plot twists (if you can call them that). By the time Ian McShane addresses the audience directly, it's hard not to appreciate the shamelessly sleazy nature of Death Race.

And I'm not alone in this assertion. Ask Davis. Ask Cranpire. There's no reason for this movie to work, but if it stubbornly does anyway. Check it out if you want some free time for the cranium, but in a good way.



If I had two more weeks, I'm betting I'd add Transsiberian and Let the Right One In to this list, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Tomorrow, I'm going to extend this with an growing list of movies that weren't necessarily overlooked, but were perhaps maligned unjustly.

Until then, I remain the Cap'n.

The other half of the crap sandwich: Death Race

While I don't watch Uwe Boll's movies, I have seen many clips of him on Youtube from interviews. The impression I get from Dr. Boll is that he doesn't give a damn if his movies are terrible. He doesn't care that internet critics hate him (and regular critics), and he went so far as to prove that by beating up anyone dumb enough to accept his boxing challenge. He's happy to make shitty movies as long as they're cheap enough to turn a profit.

Paul W.S. Anderson, on the other hand, seems genuinely excited about each of his projects. In interviews Anderson appears to be full of ideas and can't wait to make this movie. It's almost like watching a fanboy geek out with his favorite toys. Unfortunately, the movies he ends up making are proof positive that all the enthusiam in the world is worthless without some skill. Any skill.

Some of you might have fuzzy memories of kind-of liking Event Horizon eleven years ago. If that's the case, I strongly advise you never watch it again. I made the mistake of sitting down with the "Director's whatever" earlier this year and dammit is that movie awful. Just a half-cocked jumble of bad science fiction, half assed rip offs of Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft, and a gaggle of really good actors trying to sell this crap to us.

Others might remember Anderson as the guy who took interesting ideas and made them horrible. Like Dr. Boll, Paul W.S. Anderson* dabbles in video game adaptations. Perhaps you've seen Mortal Kombat. Or Resident Evil. He's working on Spy Hunter right now, but I'll get back to that. Mortal Kombat I can understand. It's a pretty one-dimensional game and not surprisingly it became and awful movie. Resident Evil I can't forgive. Anderson stripped away everything that was interesting about the game and turned the film in to a ninety minute borefest about Milla Jovovich regaining her memory and skinless dogs. Oh, and occasionally zombies.

It's funny that when Anderson isn't applying his leaden hand to directing the film how much better a movie can get. Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second film (which Anderson only wrote), is cheese-tastic and doesn't try to be any deeper than that. The first film tries to dupe you into thinking it's deeper than it is with endless scenes of exposition.

But I haven't even gotten to the piece-de-resistance: Alien vs Predator. How is it possible that someone who is such a fan of both franchises (and Anderson clearly is in the "making of" footage) could manage to ruin them in one movie? Nothing about Alien vs Predator works at all, in either the mythology of the series, as its own movie, or from a technical standpoint.

And yet, this dude gets to keep making movies that are a) insipid versions of movies we like, b) toothless horror movies, or c) both.

So you'd think after all of that I'm about to tear his newest film, Death Race, a new one. To your surprise (and mine), I (kind of) won't be doing that.

Don't get me wrong: this is a bad movie. Death Race won't be making anyone's list of anything film related in five years, nor should it. And yet this may be the best film Anderson's made yet.

Admittedly, saying this is the "best Paul W.S. Anderson movie" is like saying it's the least pungent fart you've let rip in church, but Death Race finally accomplishes something I never thought I'd get from one of his movies: it's not totally boring.

Going into this movie, it's best you not think of Death Race 2000. There's no point bothering yourself with the "remake" aspect. Gone is the social commentary, the points for hitting pedestrians, the black humor, all of that is wholly absent. Instead we get long stretches of a bad prison movie with Jason Statham and Ian McShane grumbling to each other. Joan Allen seems to be here to collect a paycheck, and Tyrese Gibson apparently thought this was a Fast and the Furious sequel.

If you've seen the trailer, you already know exactly what the plot is and roughly how it plays out. Just to save you from plot recap, here it is:

..

The good news is that there are all kinds of arbitrary elements thrown in to distract you from the lack of a plot. After a quick introduction demonstrating what Death Race 2012** is to the one person who blindly bought a ticket and wandered in, there's an arbitrary scene of "how tough it is" for Jason Statham. See, the steel mill he works for is shutting down, so they have to pick up their last paychecks and go before they're locked out.

And then for no apparent reason other than to demonstrate that Statham has mad fighting skills, a SWAT team arrives. What's great is that after he beats up one SWAT guy and the workers look like they're gearing up for war, Death Race cuts of a *gasp* helicopter shot, then shows Statham calmly getting off a bus and going home!

But it doesn't end there. As you might have noticed in the trailer, all the drivers have a navigator, who is a woman that was doing time at the Maxim prison for hot chicks who love navigating cars. The only driver who doesn't get a girl is Gibson's Machine Gun Joe, because apparently he's gay. I say apparently because there's no indication whatsoever anywhere in the film that he's gay other than a guy says it. So it's either very forward thinking in terms of sexual politics or totally random. Oh, and it ends with a warning to not attempt any of the driving stunts. Duh.

Little touches like this are what keep Death Race interesting when the races aren't happening, which is most of the movie. The first actual race doesn't take place until forty minutes into the film, so get yourselves some popcorn and settle in for a dull opening act.

The races themselves are pretty short, but sleazy enough to keep things moving forward, and it honestly didn't feel like one hundred and eleven minutes. You know, the more I write about Death Race the less I understand why I enjoyed it. It's not good, but it gets by on the sheer randomness of some of the plot points and the fact that the races are more coherent than anything Anderson's done previously***. This is why Spy Hunter will only mostly suck, provided he doesn't fuck up and forget what he did right. It's possible.

So basically I'm saying that Death Race is something you're not likely to watch, and I don't blame you. It's not going to elevate your film experience or provide you with hours of conversation. That being said, if you're flipping through the channels sometime next spring and see it on Spike TV or VS or whatever cable channel gets it, you won't feel cheated if you watch a little bit. You might even chuckle a bit.

It's better than the average Paul W.S. Anderson movie, and that might be the highest compliment I can give to Death Race.





* I have to keep doing this so people don't mistake him for Paul Thomas Anderson, who made There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, and Boogie Nights. It'd be like comparing Tequiza to Tequila.
** I can only guess that's what the title would be if you wanted to connect it to the original.
*** It does give you more respect for what Quentin Tarantino does in the second half of Death Proof. Doing what he did as well as he did is apparently lost on most filmmakers today.