apocalypse sow.

With the Resident Evil 2 Remake released to critical acclaim - well my mate Paul was excited* - across PS4, Xbox One and PC in January 2019 and Resident Evil 8 coming soon(ish) I reckoned it'd be a good time to re-review some of the top quality motion pictures based on that illustrious video game saga.

Plus they've got viruses and stuff in them so they kinda suit the mood.

Have to admit tho' I did pull this one randomly from the boxset (it was a gift honest) so no idea which one this is but I think it's the second - slightly less shitey one.



Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Dir: Alexander Witt
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Iain Glenn, Sandrine Holt, Thomas Kretschmann, Sophie Vavasseur, Razaaq Adoti, Jared Harris, and Mike Epps.

L.J.: [a Zombie walks in front of his car] GTA, Motherfucker!
[he runs over the Zombie, which flips over his car]
L.J.: Yeah! Ten points!

Welcome to Raccoon City, a normal American suburban paradise indistinguishable from any other but for the large amounts of piss stained tramps wandering about trying to bite folk.

Oh yes, and the fact that it looks a wee bit like Canada and also that the bird from The Fifth Element has taken to wandering about the streets wearing a tea-towel as a dress.

So actually nothing like a normal American suburban paradise then?

Well apart from the tramps obviously.

Anyway, while the stinky hobo's are quickly taking over and the towns residents (who surprisingly aren't evil) are desperately trying to leave - or at the very least are desperate to appear in a better film - the local law enforcement (and part time jazz dance crew by the looks of them) are fighting a losing battle to maintain order - and interest - against an overwhelming number of undead gypsies and the directors almost obscene obsession with crash zooming in on ladies underwear as they climb stairs to avoid a nibbling.

If this wasn't enough to put a downer on everyone's week, the evil multinational in charge of the town, the Umbrella corporation has decided to erect large gates at every exit and has taken to machine gunning anyone who gets too close.

Which is a mercy killing really.

Valentine: She loves you not.

The local (and I do mean local) news anchor Terri Morales (turnip nosed, topless star of Rapa Nui and latter day Mr Robot cast member Holt) is bravely (and sweatily) reporting from the front lines.

What she doesn't realize is that Umbrella are blocking the broadcast, effectively cutting Raccoon City off from the outside world.

The swines.

You see, it seems that not only do they own the local secret labs, the pound shop and the bakery but also the news channels too.

Imagine an even more patently bastard Trump empire but with sexier suits and less grating accents.

Oh yes and an ability to say 'China' properly.

Tho' you think she'd have noticed the big, fuck off Umbrella logo on the side of the cameras before now.

Back in town at the local police station, a squad of Raccoon Cities finest are doing their best not to get bitten by stinky zombie prostitutes whilst not spilling their coffees and filing traffic reports but to no avail.

Enter (oh go on, if I must) barely dressed, gun toting tottie Jill Valentine (Guillory from Love Actually and Fortitude), a no nonsense cop, kicked off the force for doing things her way.

Is there any cliche this film wont dig up and parade kicking and screaming in front of us like so gin soaked arthritic relative?

Taking time out from telling everyone to leave whilst walking around with her arse wiggling in the style of a ten year old cross-dressing Chinese boy, Jill shoots an undead hooker in the face and grabs a Snickers bar before heading off to meet up with her better looking (and far better dressed) cop buddy Carlos (the chip pan haired Fehr from, ahem, The Mummy Returns).

Which begs the question as to why she didn't just go and meet up with him in the first place rather than going to the station just to walk straight thru' and leave.

Oh yes, it was so we could all enjoy the long tracking shot of her backside.

My bloody Valentine.

Anyway some more (inconsequential but very loud) shit happens and the pair end up hiding out in a church alongside Terri the reporter and rent an ethnic sidekick Wells (Adoti from Doom - the guy must like his video games, well it's either that or he's got a huge drugs habit to fund) where our fearsome foursome come across a fat vicar and his zombie sister before being attacked by some inconsequential CGI turd-monsters with big tongues.

Slobbering slimy mouth monsters and skimpily dressed heroines?

This is where the movie could get interesting.

But no, given the choice between some girl on monster tentacle sex or having the writers wife smash thru' the window on a motorbike the director goes for the latter.

Yup, it's genetically engineered skinny bird Alice (the monkey faced, boy hipped and high Scrabble scoring Jovovich), fresh from lying strapped to a bed and flashing her smooth milky white thighs and a wee bit of bush (just enough to give the small boys watching something to do with their free hand) at the end of the first movie and ready to kick zombie bum.

Oh, and show her pants a lot.

Jovovich: Water sports.

Meanwhile back at the plot, the evil (yet sexily uniformed) Major Jeff Cain (Kretschmann, that nasty rapist from The Stendhal Syndrome) is busy arguing with the crippled (both physically - I mean he is ginger - and emotionally) genius behind Umbrella's slightly dodgy bio-weapons experiments Dr. Ashford (Harris, who is obviously getting ready to appear in Chernobyl - the miniseries not the actual place that is).

It seems that in the confusion they forgot to evacuate the good doctor's daughter before shutting down the city, mistakenly crashing the car she was in into a wall instead.

Arse.

Well Milla knew exactly who to fuck to get into the picture but who does she have to fuck to get out of it?

Wheeling off in a strop (well in a wheelchair but you know what I mean), Ashford (but alas not Simpson) secretly contacts our merry band of zombie hunters - who've now picked up a wise cracking pimp named LJ ('played' if that's the right word by a shameless Epps) and offers them a safe route out of the city.

But only if they rescue his daughter first....

Seriously, this doesn't deserve art this good.

Jumping the directors ship for the abominable sequel to the lackluster (nah, I'm being polite - that should read utterly shite) Resident Evil, baby faced movie mangler Paul W.S. Anderson handed over the reigns to Alexander Witt.

Lucky fella.

As you may remember, Anderson is the 'genius' behind the brash and ballsy violent violation of Forbidden Planet that was Event Horizon, the fist fuck of a film called Alien Vs. Predator as well as the not too bad (if I'm honest) Mortal Kombat and the Kurt Russell straight to video Blade Runner-baiting abortion Soldier.**

Sorry if I'm bringing back bad memories here but people need reminding of these facts.

"Laugh now!"

So you can only imagine how much of an utter shite-fest this movie is seeing as Anderson quickly booted Witt from the director's chair for the next installment.

Tho' let's be honest, how do you make a totally unwanted and unnecessary sequel to a film that couldn't even be arsed being anything like the video game it was based on in any way halfway decent or indeed watchable?

Give credit where it's due tho', I mean Witt's DP CV is/was certainly impressive (in a mainstream kinda way) and for years previous to this travesty he'd been working alongside Sir Ridley of Scott which you'd think would be pretty good on the job training.

At the very least the film should look nice, not like it was shot thru' a gauze of watered down shite.

Saying that it was 16 years and about 400 sequals ago so some fucker must have liked it.

Which is even scarier a thought when you realise that the next one - the beige hell that was Resident Evil: Extinction - was directed by the uber-permed one-hit wonder Russell (Razorback) Mulcahy.
For those lucky enough to never have seen it, it's less a horror thrill-ride and more a virtual reality trip thru' Simon LeBon's 80s boil wash.

On a brighter note, Alexander Witt's career now seems to consist of making short films for Land Rover which must pay quite well seeing as his last major movie - the Nic Cage starer Red Squad - seems to have vanished into the ether.

Imagine that, a Nic Cage movie too shit to release?

Now if only RE:A was as scary.

"You ain't seen me....right?"

Who stole Milla's leg?

Complete and utter tosh, which has scarily given me a real urge to revisit the rest now.

Is there any hope for me?


















































*So excited in fact that he did a 'mod' of main character Claire Redfield so you can play the entire game with her just wearing her underwear.

Look:

**Scary but true - Soldier which was written by David Peoples, who co-wrote the script for Blade Runner is considered to be an unofficial sequel/prequel to it,

Not only does the film subtlety reference the stories of Philip K. Dick but it also features a Spinner from Blade Runner amongst the background wreckage on the planet.

And if that wasn't enough, Kurt Russell’s character is shown to have fought in the battles referenced in Roy Batty’s (Rutger Hauer) famous monologue - the Shoulder of Orion and Tannhäuser Gate - leading to some film fans to assume that they are, in fact, one in the same character.

monkey trouble.

It's the school holidays so the podlings are choosing the movies around here for the next 6 weeks.

Luckily today they chose probably THE best monkey/wolf/crocodile-based beat 'em up released this year.

Rampage (2018).
Dir: Brad Peyton.
Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, P. J. Byrne, Demetrius Grosse and
Breanne Hill.

"...Of course the wolf can fly!"

Somewhere in Earth's orbit spacelab Athena-1, a research facility owned by the junior Umbrella Corporation Energyne, is on fire and falling to bits due in part to the mutated lab rat named Larry, who's escaped from his cage looking for snacks.

Stuck in the middle of all this mayhem is Dr. Kerry Atkins (Warriors of Virtue's Princess Elysia and Planet Terror's Dr. Dakota Block Shelton) who is desperately trying to secure some highly important Thermos flasks full of science-y stuff before the whole place explodes.

Which it does in spectacular fashion just as she reaches a handy escape pod which unfortunately too explodes sending the flasks hurtling to Earth.

And it's on Earth - or more precisely at a San Diego wildlife preserve -
where we meet ex-US Army Special Forces tough guy, UN anti-poaching officer and part-time primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson) and his best friend, a rare albino gorilla named George whom he saved from pesky poachers when he was just a baby.

The gorilla that is, tho' I'm sure Dwayne Johnson was a baby too once.

After some basic character stuff and some Mr Tumble style comic signing Davis heads home for the night so misses the point where one of the space-based canisters crashes into George's enclosure spraying him with a noxious green gas.

Meanwhile the remaining flasks crash to Earth landing in the Everglades, where it's scoffed by a hungry crocodile and a Wyoming forest where a lands on a sleeping gray wolf.

Hmmm....I forsee trouble.

And maybe a wee bit of rampaging.

"Shite in mah massive monkey mooth ya green-gilled bastard!"

The next day Davis and co. are fairly surprised to find that poor George has grown to over twice his normal size, killed a grizzly bear in a fit of pique and is now hiding in a cave covered in snot and tears.

Which is nice.

As Davis waves his arms about trying to find out what the hell is happening who should turn up but genetic engineer and plot exposition expert Dr. Kate Caldwell (Ms Moneypenny herself, Harris), who helpfully explains that the gas that George has come into contact with was developed by Energyne in order to rewrite a creatures genes, she developed it in order to cure her brothers ingrowing toenail and bunions but Energyne - being a huge multinational company and therefore evil - have perverted her research and weaponised it.

The companies owners, the resting bitch faced Claire Wyden and her Donald Trump Jr. like brother Brett (ex Famous Monsters editor and Watchmen's Silk Spectre Åkerman and ball-faced Lacy from The Office) upon discovering she was about to spill the beans (tho' not alas slowly over her silky smooth thighs) got her sent to prison and discredited before continuing the research.

Bastards.

George, hungry for bananas and bored with all this chat escapes only to be quickly captured by a team of covert government agents led by the twangy  Agent Harvey Russell (The Walking Dead's Morgan) who pops the sleeping chimp on a plane bound for a secret base of something.

Honestly if they don't care why should i?

Meanwhile, Claire and Brett have hired a hit squad of mercenaries to find and capture the wolf, which has now mutated to giant size and is going by the name of Ralph.

No, really.

"Laugh now!"

Nothing about this plot thread matters tho' as the mercenaries are quickly dispatched giving us much more time to witness Davis signing to George and telling us how animals are nicer than people whilst a giant wolf makes it's way across mainland USA killing people.

He really didn't think that one thru' did he?

With the death of her private army Claire falls back on plan B, which involves capturing Ralph and and George then hoping one of them will kill Kate therefore keeping their secret experiments um, secret.

To this end they rig a huge transmitter atop their offices in order to lure the animals to Chicago.

Yup it seems that as well as having super strength and giganticness genes the animals have also been cunningly engineered to respond aggressively to a certain sound frequency.

Seems legit.

No sooner have they switched on the transmitter than George goes mental* and crashes the plane - tho' luckily Davis, Kate, and Russell manage to parachute to safety which acts as a bonding experience for the two tough guys who then vow to help each other save George and bring down the bad guys.

And girl.

No caption needed.

By this time George is miles away and heading for a showdown (and a bitchslap) with Ralph in downtown Chicago.

And as someone who's been there I can safely say it's no great loss.

Arriving at a military base for no other reason that to show how incompetent and trigger happy the army are, Davis and Kate convince Russell - who has gone from wise-cracking cowboy arsehole to wise cracking cowboy hero - to help them steal a helicopter (which Davis can fly obviously)so that they can arrive in Chicago before George and maybe even grab a bite to eat before the building throwing starts.

Unfortunately due to Trump's travel ban they get stuck in customs touching down just as George and Ralph begin their big bash attack.

With the military overwhelmed and outmaneuvered by a large CGI chimp and a dog puppet Davis and Kate valiantly attempt to make it to the Energyne building in order to steal a vaccine for George and save our monkey mate their journey is hampered by the surprise appearance of the mutated crocodile (named Lizzie) from earlier.

Much computer generated mayhem ensues as the terrifying trio begin throwing lumps of skyscraper at each other as the wolf flies around trying to each fighter planes.

Which begs the question, if Ralph has grown wings and can fire quills from his back and Lizzie has sprouted horns and a frilly neck thing, why George does nothing except change size dramatically between scenes.

He could at least have a massive mutant wang to beat folk with.

Or grown an extra head.

It's almost as if the film features no real science at all.

But at this point who gives a fuck cos the airforce have launched a big shiny stealth bomber and plan to level Chicago with a massive bomb.

Fuck yeah.

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas.....MONSTA!"

Meanwhile at Energyne our heroes easily manage to procure a few vials of the antidote but in order to ramp up the excitement level are caught by Claire and Brett.

Well by Claire actually as Brett's main characterisation appears to be sweating and twitching whilst wearing a blouson jacket that not even Timothy Dalton would be seen dead in but them the breaks I guess.

As a plus point Jake Lacy is considerably less punchable than his slightly more famous lookalike Matthew Lillard so it's a win all round really.

As she sinisterly - and it has to be said quite sexily -  reveals that the serum only eliminates the animals' aggression rather than revert them back to their normal size - or in George's case whatever size suits the scene.

Taking the vaccine, Claire shoots Davis in order to show what a thoroughly bad girl she is but luckily with Dwayne Johnson being constructed entirely from 100% ham he survives so she decides to just leave the pair where they are and escape by helicopter which is kept on the roof.

The same roof that houses the transmitter.

You remember the one the beasts are after.

I foresee trouble.

Malin Åkerman in a scene obviously cut from the movie.

As Davis and Kate attempt to catch up with the dirty dealing duo our science-type pal informs Davis that she secretly hid a vial of vaccine just in case the situation arises where she can pop it into Claire's bag and feed her to George, laughing at the thought of such a thing happening they continue to the roof where the aforementioned monkey is busy beating a wolf around the head with the helicopter.

With her only means of escape currently being waved around by an angry simian, Claire forces Davis to distract his hairy pal (George not Kate obviously)  while she attempts to sneak into the helicopter dressed as a banana but being resourceful Kate does indeed sneakily pop the vial into Claire's handbag and pushes her towards George, who swallows Claire her whole.

You'd think he'd spit that bit out tho'.

With George returning to his senses Davis hurriedly explains the situation to him and the by now far less angry ape agrees to help the humans but the airstrike is still incoming and preparing to blow the city to bits.

Will George defeat the bad beasts before making an inappropriate sex-based sign language joke?

Will Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character actually do anything other than spout chocolate box platitudes like some PC be-suited Roy Rogers on Valium?

Will the world's love of Dwayne Johnson (and it's ability to forgive him every shite film he ever makes) ever end?

 Will I actually remove the pole from my arse and admit to actually lapping this film up?

Let me start by admitting that I'm a sucker for a giant monster movie - especially one based on one of my fave arcade games (a game which, I admit I still occasionally play) so when they announced that they were adapting Rampage for the big screen - and featuring everyone's fave beefcake Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson no less - I'll admit I was a wee bit excited.


And that excitement literally doubled when I discovered that the director attached to the project was Brad Peyton, the man behind not only the criminally underrated Cats And Dogs sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (a film that is on an almost constant loop in our house thanks to young master Cassidy) but also the retro-style disaster flick San Andreas (which also features Dwayne Johnson, helicopters and one of the Watchmen cast - is there a pattern forming?) and introduced the world to the spooky charms of Nadia Litz in his short film Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl.

Seriously why hasn't this guy won an Oscar yet? - or at least one of those well done certificates they give school kids.

Or even an 'I am special' badge.**

"I'm not a real welder!"

But - I hear you cry -  enough of the Brad Peyton love-in, is Rampage any good?

Well quite frankly yes.

It's a work of genius that is so meta in its almost perfect pastiche of dumb as nuts 80s action movies that it could actually be mistaken for genuinely wanting to be one.

It's terrifyingly predictable to a point of almost becoming a Mel Brooks style piss-take of the genre and it knows it but unlike most other movies of its ilk Rampage doesn't actually give a fuck - it just cares about how much giant monster-based destruction it can throw at the screen and how many times it can have Dwayne Johnson signing "Are you OK buddy?" at a CGI albino monkey whilst looking vaguely concerned.***

It even has a message of sorts about man being the real monsters tho' this is slightly less convincing when it's offset with footage of a huge horned crocodile eating people whilst a wolf the size of a bus bites a helicopter.

Plus it features the worlds most popular actor Dwayne Johnson wearing a tight 'muscle' top going around hitting people whilst still having a caring, sharing side that appeals to men and woman (and gorillas) alike.

And if that's not enough at one point he tries to kill a flying wolf with a bazooka.

Essential viewing.





























































*Please note how I resisted putting that he went apeshit. You're welcome.















**The campaign starts here.

***The answer is 24 times by the way.

turning japanese.

Been mixing some music and visuals for an upcoming Tokyo A Go-Go night here (see? I do have a social life) and Mrs Lamont and myself got talking about the very wonderful Saiko Exciting.

For those of you too young (or too non-resident in the UK) to know what I'm ranting about, Saiko Exciting was a weekly two-hour Saturday & Sunday morning entertainment show from The Sci-Fi Channel focusing on all things Japanese presented by the very wonderful Seera (Sarah Backhouse, later to be seen on the Star Trek movie re-releases as the galaxies sexiest Starfleet Science Officer waxing lyrically on such subjects as V'Ger, Thalaron Radiation and Khan) aided and abetted by Jonathan Clements (no me neither) and with games reviews from Emily Newton-Dunn of Bitz fame.

Mixed between segments on how to order pints of lager in Japanese, uncomfortable  J-Pop pogo-ing and small children screaming were full episodes of Neon Genesis Evengelion and possibly THE greatest anime of all time the sublime Martian Successor Nadesico, a show so brilliant that even just hearing it's theme tune - You Get To Burning performed by Yumi Matsuzawa - was enough to banish any signs of a hangover.

Best of all tho' these shows aired uncut.

So let's take a moment to remember those heady days - by clicking this handy link - but most of all to bathe in the beauteous loveliness of  Sarah Backhouse.

お げんき で！

boris the hedgehog.

For your enjoyment/education various photo's from Moscow's Museum of Arcade games.

No idea why.