Resident Evil Reboot

[Erik20]

What's up with the camerawork in this movie? I usually don't even notice stuff like this, but it's shot really "weird." Strange angles, lingering shots where nothing is happening, sometimes it seems like they just put up cameras in random spots and switch between them in a scene without thinking about where the actors are...

It kind of feels like a cheap 80's horror movie, and not in a good way.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Main reason I didn't watch it in theaters is because of the cast. I don't recognize Leon and Jill. Stop ****ing with my memory and love for the franchise.

 

[Captain Tired]

What's up with the camerawork in this movie? I usually don't even notice stuff like this, but it's shot really "weird." Strange angles, lingering shots where nothing is happening, sometimes it seems like they just put up cameras in random spots and switch between them in a scene without thinking about where the actors are...

It kind of feels like a cheap 80's horror movie, and not in a good way.

Maybe as tribute to the fixed camera angles of the original PS1 game? Maybe that's giving the director too much credit though.

 

[Erik20]

Maybe as tribute to the fixed camera angles of the original PS1 game? Maybe that's giving the director too much credit though.

I actually had the same thought , but sometimes an actor walks out of a shot and they just kept on filming for a couple of seconds... I also think some of the angles are intentional. But then you have scenes like Leon barricading a door, and it's shot through a fence with a plank blocking half of the view

This is definitely more like the games, if you're a fan you'll see that they did the research this time, but I'm not sure if it's better than the previous movies.

 

[Detective Conan]

This is definitely more like the games, if you're a fan you'll see that they did the research this time, but I'm not sure if it's better than the previous movies.

It isn’t better than the original movie, but it’s still leagues and bounds better than any of the sequels, imo.

 

[Lily Adler]

Still waiting for this to be on a streaming service. Not gonna pay to see it.

 

[TheVileOne]

Main reason I didn't watch it in theaters is because of the cast. I don't recognize Leon and Jill. Stop ****ing with my memory and love for the franchise.

Faithful to the games my boot.

 

[Erik20]

It isn’t better than the original movie, but it’s still leagues and bounds better than any of the sequels, imo.

I can say it's better than that final one. It took me 3 days to finish that garbage. I was just bored and all those quick cuts gave me a headache. And at least this one doesn't have a character in it who's basically a superhero

This reboot is like a fan film made by someone who doesn't really know what he's doing. People who like Leon are going to hate this, and not just because of his appearance...

Also, about Chris

Spoiler

you obviously can't really harm the character, but he had some serious plot armor. There are times where he definitely should've been bitten or killed. Like when he was swarmed by all those zombies, his buddy in the exact same situation dies immediately, but Chris gets out somehow. Or at the end with the "final boss"...

 

[Spider-Aziz]

An executive producer for this film.

Still waiting for this to be on a streaming service. Not gonna pay to see it.

I didn't pay to see it, watched it safely at home.

Faithful to the games my boot.

The mid credits sequence uses the intro of the remake of RE1... but instead of shooting body bag a revived Wesker -a corpse that survived a collapsing house unscathed- comes out of it.

Totally faithful, yo.

 

[psylockolussus]

God. I was contemplating whether I should watch this in a theater last week and good thing I didn't. I just saw this today and it sucked so bad!

Worst looking Resident Evil movie ever. Project Alice SiX Piece Saga looks high budget compare to this.

The cast is boring. I don't know why they even included Jill and Leon. Not only they looked unrecognizable compare to their videogame counterpart, they were written so badly. Jill was useless. Leon was turned into a weakling. Chris and Claire had no charm whatsoever. Like say what you want about Alice but at least Milla Jovovich carried the movies. The actors were just so blah. I don't know why they tried to make Wesker not evil. It was so out of the character. Sherry was an eXtra. The mid credit scene was just ugh why?

I felt like they crammed 3 videogames into a very bad movie. It is just so awful. Birkin, Lisa and the Licker weren't utilized well as well.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Watched WRC. There were glimpses of "what could've been". Decent Claire (with a motorcycle no less), the only one whom I liked in this adaptation as a fan of old RE games. Some sets are good, good build up, which resembled modern RE games. But it's still a major misfire, because almost nothing gets enough development (as everyone expected) after they announced they will be combining first two games. Plus bizarre tonal shifts. And it's on top of game characters, who were changed beyond recognition.

 

[chamber-music]

I actually liked this. I found it no worst than the schlocky B movie previous films. Seems like the horror elements rather than action elements were at the forefront of this version. Donal Logue had the best lines. Logue had the nineties sarcastic thing nailed.

Raccoon felt really small. It felt like a city that was just a few blocks.

A lot of British actors in this film. Hannah John-Kamen's American accent completely disappeared when she talked to Leon in the diner. This is probably the best Tom Hopper has done, his accent in Umbrella Academy can be a bit inconsistent. Hopper's character arc is similar to the one in that SAS Red Notice film.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I think first PWSA RE movie is better than WRC, but WRC is better than any of the sequels.

 

[Captain Tired]

I finally got around to watching this. There's so, so much I could rag on this movie for, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just say that it was frustratingly mediocre. Watchable, but that's probably the best that can be said about it.

And also, while far from the film's biggest problem, the question that's currently most fresh in my mind is: who tf was behind the songs selection for this movie? Because holy ****, this soundtrack was pissweak and lame af. Every guy in this film seemed to listen to all-female rock bands and/or teenybopper pop music. That scene where the the burning zombie casually strolled into the police station to the tune of Jennifer Paige's Crush, was almost as ill-advised and perplexing as the use of 4 Non Blondes in the trailer.

EDIT - Also, one of my favourite dumb moments of the film: 'I'm done taking chances!' - says the guy who doesn't seem to think for even a second that he should maybe shoot the infected prisoner he's locked in a cell with, as soon as he gains a loaded gun. Guy just literally stands there with a loaded gun, turns his back on the infected cellmate for about a solid minute and just waits to get bitten. Ugh this film pisses me off, the more I think about it...

 

[Erik20]

EDIT - Also, one of my favourite dumb moments of the film: 'I'm done taking chances!' - says the guy who doesn't seem to think for even a second that he should maybe shoot the infected prisoner he's locked in a cell with, as soon as he gains a loaded gun. Guy just literally stands there with a loaded gun, turns his back on the infected cellmate for about a solid minute and just waits to get bitten. Ugh this film pisses me off, the more I think about it...

What makes that moment even worse, is that this is the guy who knew what was going on...

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

That moment was ridiculous and made Leon look such a fool

 

[OutOfBoose]

Seriously, poor Leon. Also, Wesker guy is hilariously bad.

 

[Captain Tired]

Wesker, Jill and Leon may as well have been completely original characters. They hardly resembled their game counterparts at all. I don't understand why they went with the castings and characterisations that they did. Especially for the two most iconic and well-remembered protagonists of the series. Claire, Birkin and Chris were perfectly fine and inoffensive, which by itself isn't saying much, but when compared to the castings for Jill and Leon...

I always found the Redfields to be much more vague and less defined in their personalities anyway. I could see myself liking this more if this were the very first attempt at a live-action adaptation of the series. First attempts usually exercise a lot of creative licence. But at this point in the franchise's history, this just felt wilfully dismissive.

 

[TheVileOne]

I think a lot of video game protagonists or characters have very weakly or vaguely defined personalities on purpose because game developers want the players to see themselves in those characters.

Link is called "Link" because he's literally the link between the game and the player. DoomGuy was conceived as the player. id Software never gave Doom Marine or DoomGuy a name because the player is the Doom Marine.

I think the original Resident Evil games were really good at immersing you and making you feel terrified and scared about being the mansion or the Raccoon City RPD. They gave you just enough of the characters to get you going and keep you playing.

 

[OutOfBoose]

The original RE (1996) had almost blank slate characters (which is good for games, if they focus a player, not a story), but as the world of RE developed forward, it's characters also started to get more and more detail.

In the first sequel (RE2) it already started to shift. Leon and Ada got plenty of personality and even an arc. Claire - not so much, but we can build her character based on her appearance, traits, her relationship with her spec-ops brother, etc. Jill received development in RE3. And the remake had no problem adapting her in a more realistic way. And I feel it's probably the biggest highlight of it. New Jill and Carlos basically leap at you from the screen. So likable and real.

And same goes for many characters in the series. Wesker, Jill, Claire, Leon and even Chris, who's the most generic Captain America of them all have enough material to build from. YOU CAN make them work on big screen if there's enough work and talent involved.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah. Leon Kennedy became an action hero. And Chris Redfield started punching boulders

Also Chrisposting.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Eh, RE4 was basically a reboot of the series. And the games after it and before the second reboot took wrong lessons from it. In the end, horror stories don't need complex characters. Because the main thrill is overcoming the odds. These stories need defined personalities. Sort of like MacReady from The Thing. What do we know of him? Not much. But little details here and there compliment his actions in the film.

 

[Captain Tired]

Upon reflection another problem I have is that Spencer Mansion, my favourite setting of the games and a huge cataclysmic event within the narrative of the games' storyline (at least as far as the Raccoon City material is concerned), is reduced to being the most minor footnote in all the chaos of RE2. It hardly features in the movie at all, and the meagre time that it is allotted is pointless on account of the fact that it's so poorly lit that you can barely make out much of anything.

I'm tempted to think that the director simply didn't want to risk passing up his opportunity at adapting RE2, and so instead of risking an uncertain future based off a tepidly received RE1 adaptation, awkwardly mashed the two together to have an excuse to plough straight on ahead with Claire, Birkin and Lionel (because there's no way that's Leon ).

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Watched this again, it's not a bad little movie really, just makes some poor decisions but I liked the cast a lot.

I see this snuck up to $38 million WW. I wonder if a sequel is on the cards?

 

[Zantera]

I was always aware of RE as a game franchise and I knew the old movies (saw the first one when it came out) but never really 'got' the hype. However last year I played the RE2 remake and it completely blew me away. Amazing game and I loved the slow pacing and puzzle solving, the atmosphere and it was just overall a really great experience. RE3 remake was also good but a bit worse overall. The new movie definitely gets closer to what a RE movie should be, but it can still be summed up as 'missed potential' IMO.

In general I consider it a big shame with zombie movies that they're always rushing to get through the outbreak so that they can get to the big action scenes with a horde of zombies closing in on our main characters. Personally I'd rather see it slowly unfold, similar to how it feels in RE2 where things are just slowly getting worse and worse. In terms of character designs I don't mind an updated look of the characters from the video games, because IMO they don't need to look 100% the part, but the bigger offense was getting the characters so wrong. Leon in this movie was a joke and he wasn't "rookie cop who is in over his head but working to solve the situation and learning" like in the game, instead he comes off as incompetent and doesn't even seem comfortable around a gun. Whoever wrote this movie must have really hated that character because nothing about him feels like the character we know.