Hello, boys and girls! Long time, no see! Today we're looking at Armond White's review of "Resident Evil: Afterlife." Enjoy!
Sometimes directors grab an opportunity just to stretch their filmmaking muscles. That explains both Mark Romanek’s new venture, Never Let Me Go, and why Paul W.S. Anderson has essayed Resident Evil: Afterlife, his second movie in the Resident Evil series, which he initiated with the fantastically swift, streamlined and compelling original film in 2002.
If by "original", you mean based on a long-running series of Japanese video games, sure.
In Afterlife, Anderson confirms his astonishing gift for imagery and frighteningly good action craft. Despite the grim, pessimistic CapCom video game premise where Alice (Milla Jovovich) fights a constantly mutating, globe-threatening virus—like Ripley always battling those aliens—Anderson finds ways to depict apocalyptic scenarios that actually suggest foresight.
Foresight of Apocalyptic scenarios, that is. It's not like Anderson was predicting the economy in Q3 of 2012 or something.
They have a stylish, sharp-witted sense of the future and a dreamy, exciting faith in human resilience embodied in Jovovich’s lithe, resourceful, strikingly lovely Alice, as well as a group of survivors that include actors Boris Kodjoe and Ali Larter.
Some of the best actors of a generation, to be sure.
But I get it now: Armond prefers apocalyptic futures with faith in humanity. Just like I prefer my skiing to be extra rocky.
If critics and fanboys weren’t suckers for simplistic nihilism
DRINK!!!!!
and high-pressure marketing, Afterlife would be universally acclaimed as a visionary feat, superior to Inception and Avatar on every level.
You know what, Armond? You're absolutely right. If "critics" and "fanboys" didn't … like… other… movies… they… would… like… this… one.
Brilliant!
Just look at how Anderson activates his canvas in the plane crash sequence. First, the shock of the crash is solarized in a wide shot, then he cuts to the interior where the imagery is frozen yet the camera pans left, moving through suspended time, characters and objects, all composed in perfect pop-art balance like a James Rosenquist panorama, and then the camera pivots—and in 3-D.
Holy Sh*t! He has a wide shot of a crash! Then an interior shot! An interior shot that MOVES! IN MOTHAF*CKING 3-D!
What incredible, mind-blowing, innovating directing! Wide-shot then interior shot… WOW!
Did someone forget to mention to Armond that there are two Paul Andersons, and this is the other one?
Anderson redeems that techno-gimmick which James Cameron foolishly hawks as a gateway to new perception because he realizes it’s just a play thing, not a New Age talisman.
Anderson redeems 3-D because he realizes its a gimmick and uses it anyway? Is Barry Bonds redeemed for realizing steroids were shrinking his junk but using them anyway?
Anderson toys with 3-D for artistic caprice, constantly shifting levels, distance, perspective, layers.
3-D has layers. Like Onions. Or Ogres.
He’s a clear-eyed visionary who expiates videogame cynicism, insisting on imaginative potential. When Alice is resurrected from her android state (“Thank you for making me human”), it confirms Anderson’s ingenuity as a life force.
So, to recap, not only is Anderson a magnificent, visionary director, he's an ingenious "life force"!
Afterlife opens with deceptively dark movie homages to Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg, plus teasing riffs on Hitchcock’s The Birds, Terminator, even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when Jovovich and Larter team up to facedown a terrifying male behemoth—
You can call them "homages". You can also call them "rip-offs".
it’s a stunning bad bitcharama.
Now I know why Armond enjoyed this film.
Anderson never got the respect he deserved for his great Death Race.
Don't forget his epic masterpiece "Mortal Kombat".
But now that opportunity’s knocked again, he knocks it into the stratosphere.
Wait… Opportunity knocks, he knocks Opportunity into the stratosphere? You mean like instead of taking said Opportunity, he hits it so far away from him it ends up in the atmosphere? Did Armond mix up what he was saying?
Either Armond was being surprisingly honest here or he needs to brush up on his metaphors.
