Reel Film Chronicles – Page 14

Red Dragon

If you were to tell me that there was a universe where not only did Brett Ratner and Ridley Scott direct entries in the same film franchise, but that Brett Ratner’s film was the better one, I would never have suspected for one minute that the universe you were talking about was the one I was currently living in. There are those who might think I’m being uncharitable to Mr. Ratner, to which I would reply by directing people to the filmographies of both Brett Ratner and Ridley Scott. There’s simply no comparison, with the curious exception of their respective entries into The Silence of the Lambs series. Red Dragon was the third entry in the series and the first of two prequels after Hannibal effectively killed off any possibility of moving forward with its characters in any way that made a lick of sense. The cinematic powers that be made the correct choice of going back to a simpler time when Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) was a psychopath locked in a cage who could serve as an asset to help profile and catch other serial killers and…

Hannibal Rising

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the urge to try and turn horror icons into badass antiheroes, but I believe I’ve pinpointed the mistake that serves as the catalyst for that sort of storytelling. Hannibal Rising is the second prequel to Jonathan Demme’s seminal The Silence of the Lambs and the fourth – and hopefully last – movie in that particular horror franchise. I had only ever seen The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, so I figured that for my annual October horror movie marathon, I’d give the entire series a watch in the chronological order in which the events of the films took place rather than their release dates to watch the Grand Vision unfold. Like all of the movies featuring the iconic serial killer Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lector, Hannibal Rising was based on a book by Thomas Harris, though to what degree this movie – or any of the other Hannibal Lector movies – remained faithful to the books I haven’t much of a clue, as I have yet to read any of them. Harris seems to have carved out a financially lucrative literary niche for…

Resident Evil: Afterlife

It seems like the previous entry, Extinction, left the series in a bit of a dubious situation: the planet was a barren wasteland, with Umbrella operating from various underground facilities, and Alice found a trove of her clones with a promise of that sweet revenge. I had some reservations as I couldn’t imagine them being able to maintain the “desert” setting throughout three more films, and the idea of replacing groups of survivors with an armada of Milla Jovovich’s was borderline silly. Just as I suspected, they scaled back on the level of planetary destruction but doubled down on the clone army in the opening action sequence, which was amusing and ended with Alice potentially losing her abilities. This plot point felt more important at the time than it played out for the duration of the film, as we’re left wondering if she retains her superhuman status, but the film doesn’t really revisit it here; maybe they plan to in a future instalment. The remainder of Afterlife follows familiar zombie-film territory, where Alice meets up with a group of survivors…

Resident Evil: Retribution

One thing that the Resident Evil series of films manages to do is end on a cliffhanger, then proceed to just zoom past those events in the next installment, like Paul WS Anderson had an idea of where the Project Alice storyline was going, but ultimately decided to change gears and speed off in another direction. Retribution does pick up where Afterlife left off, with a pretty nice sequence of special effects and action before it decides to do away with story and characters from the previous film, so we have at least a bit more coherence to start out with. Retribution has Alice (Milla Jovovich) captured and in another underground Umbrella installment where she must battle not only the supercomputer Red Queen, but her old shoot-em-up pal Jill Valentine (clearly not in control and turned evil by the devices from the previous film). The film is bursting with characters from previous films and from the video game (of which I only really recognize Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong); I have to assume their characters are butchered much to the…

The Old Guard

The Old Guard is emblematic of all of the worst tendencies of Netflix original content. It’s not that it’s complete and utter garbage. At least if it were terrible, it would evoke some kind of emotional response. I would rather a movie made me either love it or hate it. But when a movie forces me into the emotional purgatory of apathy, that’s something I refuse to forgive. Like the vast majority of Netflix original movies and TV shows I’ve seen, The Old Guard is neither great nor terrible, but instead aggressively mediocre and eminently forgettable. Sorry, what was I talking about again? Netflix’s biggest enemy seems to have been its overnight success as the giant of a media streaming industry that they essentially created. At first, their challenge was how to secure all the licencing and rights to hundreds of thousands of movies. To their credit, they never rested entirely on their laurels, and adapted their business model proactively in anticipation of market trends. Knowing that they couldn’t keep the entire pie to themselves forever, especially considering how lucrative that pie was,…

Inception: 10th Anniversary

As I slowly approached the theatre, I squinted my eyes to avoid both the relentless brightness of the sun and the light dirt blowing across the parking lot from a harsh midday summer breeze. Looking around me, I saw maybe five, six cars in the vast ocean of pavement and curbs that formed the parking lot for this particular movie house. In front of me, was the vast, inoffensive colour scheme of my local multiplex, adorned by tiny empty poster boards and a sense of doom. I looked about me, expecting a local vagrant to warn me of the dangers within, but while there was nobody to be seen I already knew the dangers that lurked before me. While COVID-19 ravished the entire world, the large multiplex stood as stark monolithic houses of contagion and virulent disaster. You would have to be a fool to sally forth, and while the pandemic was at a lull in my local area, and the virus all but absent, I found myself opening the doors of this familiar-yet-unfamiliar establishment to go see an IMAX…

Resident Evil: Extinction

The third entry in the Resident Evil series surprised me with its quality and coherent, consistent story. I guess that’s not saying entirely too much as the bar was set a bit lower than I had thought in Apocalypse, which seemed to suffer from a seemingly necessary requirement to instill Alice’s continuing story into an adaptation of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Extinction moves entirely out on its own; although I recognize Claire Redfield’s name, I must assume that the planet becoming one vast desert strays far off the path of the video game series (it would seem to make Resident Evil 4, which I did play, impossible). I did laugh at some of the silliness on screen here, but the film seems to embrace itself and is pushed forward with a determined Milla Jovovich and an over-the-top mad scientist played by Iain Glen in a lively performance. In a dip into Mad Max territory, Ali Larter’s Claire Redfield is leading a convoy of survivors in search of a safe refuge; the group is at the peril of the elements, including…

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

With just a brief two years between the first and this sequel, Apocalypse picks up where the cliffhanger ending of Resident Evil left off – for the most part: we’re treated to a recap of the first films events before the action gets started. The story follows a couple of groups of STARS soldiers (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) as they find themselves trapped in virus and zombie infected Raccoon city. Umbrella Corporation has also sealed the cities borders and unleashed another genetic experiment in the form of Nemesis upon any survivors, for no other reason than to see how it performs before wiping the city off the map with an atom bomb. It seemed a bit crazy to me that the city could suffer as much as it did within the thirteen hour time jump we got at the beginning of the film, but I’ll look past that as I suspect this evil corporation to be taking advantage of the situation and artificially spreading the virus just for the sake of being evil. It seems a bit ludicrous that one…

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

After a week of allowing Nicolas Cage’s maniacal performance as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, I still find myself struggling to decide if this “sequel” is actually better or worse than the original film (also starring Cage) from 2007. There are certain elements to the film, including Idris Elba, a straightforward story and the grittier look of the Rider himself that push me in one direction, but then I think about the first film and how this followup really failed to grab me. It’s like this film is just a bit too generic, including that straightforward story – everything feels like it’s been done before. Most perplexing though, is trying to determine if Spirit of Vengeance is an actual sequel or not; would they reboot Ghost Rider after four short years? It seems they did. Sprit of Vengeance establishes Johnny Blaze as continuing to struggle with his alter ego, Ghost Rider. He has very little control over the soul-searching supernatural skeleton, which I would have thought would be a little more within reach after the events of the first…

Palm Springs

For someone who grew up idolizing Groundhog Day, I had a hefty built-in nostalgia-fueled skepticism of a modern time loop film that could do anything truly innovative or unique with the genre. Palm Springs upends my pessimistic attitude and blew me away: from the moment I saw the trailer a few weeks ago, through watching the film to the mid-credits stinger, I was completely hooked on this time defying romantic comedy. With a stellar script by Andy Siara, Palm Springs follows Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) as they are seemingly stuck reliving the same day over, and over, and over again. While that seems like familiar territory, the film elevates itself above being a simple clone or rip-off with some fantastic characters and gigantic heart, as well as an acute self-awareness. Indeed, I felt like the film was speaking directly to me – a viewer who is well familiar with the Groundhog Day time loop trope – and indulging in all the meta-topics that friends would discuss about various ramifications of the time-loop mechanic that was established nearly…