Cult Films: Event Horizon (1997)

By Jason Haskins

Event Horizon was a movie that has, more or less, been forgotten from public consciousness since its released back in 1997. Is it deserved? While most would write this off as another bad sci-fi movie from the nineties, it's surprising to note that it actually holds up fairly well and is quite entertaining for what it tries to do. It's not necessarily an original Event, per se, but it's familiarity is strangely comfortable.

Videogame Bits: Resident Evil (2002)

By Terry Cleveland

Zombies, guns, and nudity are usually good things when you throw them together in a movie, but unfortunately this not the case with Resident Evil. For some reason the style of horror is next to nothing like the games, which have a more methodical style.
The movie starts out with a depiction of the Umbrella Corporation who it turns out manufacture biological weapons and other assorted nasty things. The scene then shifts to a typical day at an Umbrella Corp. lab where various people are going to work and getting ready for the day. Then in a typically cliché fashion somebody decides to release a horribly infectious zombie virus (T-Virus) into the ventilation system and ruin everyone’s day. After some fun movie fatalities we finally get to the main character Alice (Milla Jovovich) who wakes up naked in a shower with amnesia (surprise!). She then meets up with an elite team of soldiers, who were sent to investigate the outbreak, and three civilians (Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, and James Purefoy ). The rest of the movie is then dominated by matrix-esque slow motion action sequences bathed in industrial metal music, and a boring plot involving a rogue AI. There also is a half-assed attempt to establish a hazy conspiracy involving Alice’s memories, but it is overshadowed by the obvious reliance on future installments in the series to fill in the holes.
One of the main reasons that the adaptation missed the mark so badly was the focus on action instead of survival. Normally this would be ok in a Hollywood movie, but when it comes to Resident Evil one of the most frightening aspects of the game is the uniquely savage breed of survival, where even as a player you are never sure if you will make it to the next room. The movie is definitely about survival, but more emphasis is placed on the hot ass kicking protagonist, than the actual atmosphere of the source material.
My impression of this movie was that the person(s) in charge of the production had either not played any of the Resident Evil games, or had and simply chose to say “fuck it, let’s just add some metal music and slow motion fight sequences”. I’m not saying that it was all bad though; there were definitely some recognizable references to the games, and a great scene where one of the characters gets cut into cubes of meat by a laser defense system, but these were not enough to salvage what little there is to this movie. Ultimately I’d rather play the games (even the bad ones) any day than watch this movie ever again.

2 out of 5 stars

© Terry Cleveland, 2011

Videogame Bits: Mortal Kombat (1995)

By Paco McCullough

Videogame bits is a new feature where we discuss videogame movies. Over the next several months I will be reviewing one a week.
This week in videogame bits, I watched Paul Anderson’s (The Resident Evil one, not the Boogie Nights one) Mortal Kombat. I had fond memories of this movie, as I’m sure most boys from the 90s did. It had been years since I had seen it, and I found myself actually excited to see this film. Boy was I disappointed.
    Mortal Kombat follows three humans as the fight in a tournament to save the earth from the evil Outworlders. If ten tournaments are lost, then the Outworlders will conquer earth and enslave all its inhabitants. At the start of the film, nine have already been lost, so a lot is riding on our heros. Somehow the writers managed to make heros that were not only cliched and poorly written, but also unlikable on their own merits. Even though I felt like I hardly knew Johnny Cage (Linden Ashbey, who has had no other major roles to speak of), I still found him incredibly unlikable. If you don’t care about the characters, then there’s no thrill when they’re put at risk.
    The story takes up far too much time, which would be a problem even if it was good. Mortal Kombat is based off of a videogame where all the characters do is fight, yet only a small percentage of this movie is actually fights. Much more of this movie is talking about fights and the characters fears. I cannot emphasize enough how poorly written these scenes are.
    As for the fights themselves, they are competently done. None of these actors are comparable to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba, or any other professional martial artists. Despite this, the fights are decently choreographed, although there is an absurd level of backflips that take place. Nearly all the action is bloodless, which as a fan of the games, I feel is counterproductive. Considering how violent the videogame Mortal Kombat was, I am confused as to why they chose to make a tame PG-13 flick. The only thing the two properties seem to have in common is their overall level of campiness.
    There are certain enjoyable things about this film. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa seems to be the only one in on the joke, chewing the scenery as the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung. The cheesy techno score is laughable in all the right ways. Mostly though, this movie is not worth your time or energy. If you are interested in a Mortal Kombat viewing experience, check out the highly superior web series.
2.5 out of 5
© Tanner McCullough, 2011