Tag: Milla Jovovich

This is part of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week at Gorgon Reviews!

Fucking finally. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. It has final in the name, so there will be no more without a reboot, those are the rules. Ignore whatever happened between Saw: The Final Chapter and Jigsaw, those guys are liars, they totally won’t be liars here.

If you read my long milestone review on Resident Evil franchise, there is a common problem with the films. Each film would end with a cliff hanger and a goal! Okay, fine. But the next film will either ignore the cliff hanger and have it resolve off screen and ignore the “goal” set by the previous film. It was especially egregious in films 4 and 5, where they decided to go a completely different route, creating their own excuses that were shit for changing the plot. It was fucking stupid. Although sure, the second film continued after the first where you would expect it to, so that is the only one that really felt connected.

Anyways, if that happens again, I might flip my shit. Also another reminder, one stuntman died during filming of a scene, and a stuntwoman had a shit ton of injuries, 2 week coma, and had her arm amputated off. Holy fuck, that is bad. That is not a good start to a movie, especially a movie no one asked for.

But that’s okay, because at least Milla was able to dangle on her own.

At the end of the last film, Alice (Milla Jovovich) and crew had to head to Washington, DC, ready to take on giant waves of zombies at the White House. Wesker (Shawn Roberts) sent them there and was a good guy now, after being a bad guy.

Well this film begins with a backstory, which is different than backstory from previous films, and then jumps over the other films to bring us to now. Which is actually in DC! But some time has passed. Alice is now alone again, for reasons. Also apparently Wesker turned on her and the crew and is a bad guy, again. Seriously, all off screen pre-movie, they were like, lets make him bad again and do none of this DC plot, and let’s put it in a new direction, again. Fuckers.

So after some fighting with a goddamn zombie dragon creature, Alice gets contacted by the Red Queen (Ever Anderson, real life daughter of Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson) and gets an earfull. Apparently the Umbrella Corporation developed an antidote before this whole outbreak thing occurred. They wanted the world to fall to ruin, yes like a Biblical flood, then they would release the antidote into the air, killing anything with the T-Virus inside of them

The Red Queen wants Alice to get to the cure before the last human settlements are wiped out. She has about two days. And of course, the cure is at the bottom of The Hive facility underneath the now wiped out Raccoon City, where there are going to be some zombies, and fucked up shit inside. Hooray!

Also featuring Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, Ruby Rose, William Levy, and Rola.

At some point in the franchise, the zombies just become Alice’s biggest fans and always follow her around town.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is a bad movie on almost every front.

First of all, it continues a story only in name, because it literally once again, tells a different story than the previous film implied. Characters have different motivations suddenly. Characters who were at the end of the last film are now gone and not mentioned. The entire backstory is changed at the beginning, just so they can do different things with this film. Yet at the same time, this is just another film where the goal is to go into an underground bunker, do a thing, then escape the bunker. A nice giant open world long fight, implied by the end of the last movie, would have been great.

There is technically action in this film, but good luck figuring it out. Even scenes of very little important are cut so rapidly I found myself barely watching the movie. It was hurting my head and eyes. It is one of those ways to cover up good action scenes by having quick cuts and to hide stunt actors. No good amount of choreography, just cut cut cut with flashing lights and confusion.

Acting is weak. The plot is extremely weak, with twists you can definitely see coming. There is nothing profound about this film, even with Biblical elements. You will just find yourself waiting for it to be over.

HOWEVER. Guess what! It is never over. It. Is. Never. Over. This movie ends on a cliffhanger. The story isn’t over. This is probably not going to be a final chapter. Meaningful conclusions are bullshit. Sure, the story seems like they finally finished the Umbrella Arc. But you know as well as I do that if there is another movie within a decade that there will be Clones or something of the important people, another hidden sect, and a story that just won’t die.

Like zombies.

After the success of my Saw Franchise review as a Milestone Review, I knew I wanted to do it again at some point in the future. Films that were mostly too old to be reviewed individually on the website, but as a whole, could make a pretty decent Milestone Review investment, for whatever relevant reason I could think about. And yes, I was a bit surprised that it was review 550, when it doesn’t feel like that long ago.

And I knew the next one of those I would want to do would be the Resident Evil Franchise for a variety reasons. The fact that this is review 1750 makes it extra special in my eyes.

1) When I moved to Ames, I started to review EVERYTHING that hit our theaters, both new and the cheap-o theater. I made that declaration the week AFTER Resident Evil: Retribution left the main theaters apparently. I had no worry, I would watch it when it hit the cheap theaters, because I would even watch “horror” movies now. And then the cheap theater never got it.

2) End of January, a new Resident Evil film comes out, and hey, I need to watch these in order to prepare for it.

And finally, 3) I own all five of these films on Blu-Ray, bought a couple years ago on Black Friday real cheap. So, uhh, I really need to watch them already. Also, I never rushed to watch them, because I have never really played any of these games. I played like, 5-10 minutes of Resident Evil 4, found it too scary, and didn’t touch it again.

And I will finally have some context for The Kick Heard Around the Video Game Movie World.

Let’s talk about Resident Evil, the first movie based on a horror video game, based on the first horror action video game. This film starts us in the Umbrella Corporation facility. They do tech stuff around the world, basically Google, but they also secretly did weapon stuff around the world, making them filthy rich. After some disease juice gets loose in their facility, the AI who runs the whole thing (The Red Queen), kills everyone inside the facility. Every single scientist, worker, peon.

So a military group of soldiers are being sent down there to investigate why and to turn off The Red Queen. Before this happens, we see Alice (Milla Jovovich) waking up naked in a bathtub, in a mansion, with some amnesia. And that is when the soldiers bust in. The group, led by “One” (Colin Salmon) bring Alice along into The Hive (the name of the underground research facility) and let her know that she works for the Umbrella Corporation as well and is meant to guard the entrance. The rest of the team includes Michelle Rodriguez and Martin Crewes. They also have Matt (Eric Mabius) as someone who they recently arrested, and Spence (James Purefoy), Alice’s husband and also guardian of the mansion.

Don’t get your pants in a twist, this monster is coming.

When they get down there, they find destruction, death, and weird shit everywhere. Getting into The Red Queen’s server room is difficult and people die, but damn it, they shut down The Red Queen. Yay! Time to leave and go back to the fun outside in Raccoon City, good job everyone. BUT WAIT. With the AI shut down, all of the locks and operations shut down as well. And it turns out that the virus, the T-Virus, basically made zombies. And shit like that thing in the picture above to deal with.

Somehow Alice is like, super incredibly, awesome. She fights so well. Turns out that Spence is the one who spread the virus, because he was trying to stop Matt and his sister from telling the world about what they were doing. So Spence has to die, and Alice and Matt barely escape to the top before bad things happen, with Matt dying from a claw mark, the antidote so close… And then they are found by Umbrella operatives and taken away.

When Alice awakes, she finds herself in an empty hospital. After she gets out of there, she finds Raccoon City in ruins. Crashed cars, fires, and apparently the T-Virus got out and it is zombie time in the real world. MOVIE 2!

Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the extremely high bar setting subtitle, take place right after the events of the first film. Because of the team going in to capture Alice and Matt, they accidentally also let off a wave of the infected zombies onto the city. And this spreads like wild, against Umbrella’s interests. They set up a perimeter wall around the city and only have one area for people to leave, assuming they pass the test to show they are not infected or bitten. But when the dead get to that area to, they close off the last gate and leave the people inside to deal with it on their owns, even willing to fire on regular citizens.

And this is a problem. This is what Alice wakes up to. Umbrella tried to get its best scientists out of the city as well, including the inventor of the T-Virus, Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris). They were unable to get his daughter out though, Angie (Sophie Vavasseur), clearly the inspiration for The Red Queen. So he wants people to go in and find her, anyone really, promising them a way out.

It takes a lot of skill to keep that outfit together in a high action zombie apocalypse.

People like Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), an ex-cop who hated Umbrella, and her old friend, Sargeant Payton Wells (Razaaq Adoti). People like Umbrella soldiers Carlos (Oded Fehr) and Nicholai (Zack Ward). And eventually all of them meet up with a news reporter Terri (Sandrine Holt), and T.J. (Mike Epps), a guy with guns, and Alice and the girl.

Also running around the city is a giant monster, named Nemesis, working for Umbrella and killing soldiers, not citizens. He is controlled by Umbrella, namely Major Cain (Thomas Kretschmann). Eventually they find out that the monster is actually Matt, from the first on. He was experimented on, just like Alice, except she just got super strong and looked the same while he mutated as he was already scratched. Oh snap!

Also Dr. Ashford gets killed, a lot of fighting ensures, and the survivors escape on a helicopter as Raccoon City is fucking blasted with a nuke! Their helicopter crashes in the wave, Alice is killed saving the girl and Umbrella finds them some time later. Alice wakes up a few weeks later, in a Detroit Umbrella facility, by Dr. Sam Isaacs (Iain Glen), restores her own memories, breaks out and goes on the run with T.J., Jill, Carlos, and Angela, with Isaacs letting her run, knowing she is still controlled. Or something.

Exctinction takes us five years further into the franchise. The T-Virus has spread throughout the world, and basically life sucks. It is all desert-y and dead, very Mad Max-esque. Alice is now driving on her own, abandoning her friends because she is being tracked by satellite. She also has some sort of psychic powers now, thanks to experimentation.

Somewhere near Las Vegas is where we find them all now, Alice wandering and killing bad people and bad zombies alike. And a big caravan of survivors looking for a place to call home. It is led by Claire Redfield (Ali Lartner), and features some returnees like Carlos and T.J. Yay! No idea where Jill went. Some of the new “survivors” include a girl named K-Mart (Spencer Locke) and other actors (Ashanti, Christopher Egan, Matthew Marsden, and Linden Ashby).

Shit, sand got everywhere. I hate sand.

And uhh, well, eventually Umbrella attacks them again when they are in Las Vegas trying to get supplies. They want to go to Alaska, where they heard there is a settlement. More people die, and Alice goes to the local Umbrella facility to put a stop to them and take their helicopter, so the survivors can go. And she does that!

Inside the lair is of course Dr. Isaacs again, but this time he was weak, so he injected himself with the T-Virus too. This turned him into a hybrid fighting entity, with arms that could be elongated with tentacles. Fun! Alice kills that guy, finds out that this facility has hundreds of Alice clones, and she plans to use them to take down Umbrella. Looks like they are located in Tokyo for sure now, they didn’t like Isaacs, and some guy in glasses (Jason O’Mara) is the new, bad guy. Survivors to Alaska, Alice plans to take out Tokyo Hive, end of film.

Afterlife begins with showing how Tokyo got infected. Then we see Alice storm in after Extinction, clone army and all, and clear house. But Wesker (Shawn Roberts), Mr. Sunglasses himself, now played by a new actor, escapes. During their battle, he removes Alice’s super powers, of which she is happy, they both crash and explode and somehow, Alice survives. So she makes her way to Alaska.

There she is attacked by Claire, with a metal spider on her chest. Once she removes it, Claire stops, with some amnesia and doesn’t talk. But Alice finds no other survivors, just a lot of planes and emptiness. So she flies a plane to LA with Claire and lands on top of a prison with some survivors flagging her down. The survivors include Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), Crystal Waters (Kacey Clarke), Angel (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Bennett (Kim Coates), and a prisoner who calls himself Chris (Wentworth Miller).

Indoor rain scenes are all the rage these days, not at all for sexual reasons either.

And yeah, they are now in a prison, surrounded by zombies. Not just zombies, but a giant one with a big axe/hammer weapon, called Axeman. Turns out Arcadia, the Alaskan settlement, was actually the name of a ship, which is off the coast. They want to get to the ship, to see the other survivors, makes sense. So they do that. They escape, some people die, but when they get to the ship, turns out it also is an Umbrella trap.

They have everyone in tubes under ground, for testing or who knows what. And surprise! There is Wesker again, this time, super super fucking powerful, and fast, and he can regenerate. Much fighting occurs, eventually he is on a ship that explodes and everyone is free! Yay, the survivors are freed from the tubes, when…suddenly! More Umbrella ships show up, with guns. And our old friend, Jill Valentine, now blonde and not at all looking like her former self. But she has a robot spider on her chest, and then…movie ends!

Don’t worry, at the start of Retribution, we will see what immediately happens to Alice in crew, but in slow motion and backwards! Then she will tell us about the first four movie plot, then it will show the attack in regular motion at regular speed. Then we find Alice waking up in a suburban house, with a husband, a deaf child Becky (Aryana Engineer) and no zombies. Weird. Okay. Until zombies attack their neighborhood! Lot of people start dying and of course, then real Alice wakes up, again, in an Umbrella facility.

Sigh. Okay. But the computer that runs it starts to malfunction. So she escapes, a lot of weird things happen, and somehow she finds herself in Tokyo right when the plague begins? What in the fuck? Blah blah action, blah blah plot, eventually we get some knowledge. She is in a large Hive base (They are all really big), but it is a testing facility in Russia. They built huge areas to simulate T-Virus attacks in a few major cities, to sell the tech to governments against each other. It is also underwater and under ice. But don’t work she is being rescued by…Wesker?! What, he survived?

Oh and Ada Wong (Bingbing Li) his assistant. Apparently they want to free her to finally bring down Umbrella, because now Umbrella is being run by The Red Queen herself. They now have to escape, with Becky (who things Alice is her mom, despite just being a clone), in a two hour timer before the facility explodes. Also rescuing her on the other side is a crack team of warriors. Including Luther West! Also Leon Kennedy (Johann Urb), Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), and two guys who are totally not as important (Robin Kasyanov, Ofilio Portillo).

Resident Evil always had the most appropriate outfits for fighting AND doing that BDSM thing.

That’s right, this is another movie where they have to escape a place before they all die. But this one features a lot of returning members, because apparently a lot of them were actually clones the whole time. So people from the first and second movie are back, just to fight her with Valentine, still controlled by a robot, while the base comes crumbling down. And more Axemen, zombies, infected, and guns.

Needless to say, eventually they win, and get picked up by Wesker. Where is Wesker? In the White House, with the “last remaining survivors” ready to finally rid the infected threat once and for all. Maybe.

Oh where to do we begin. I guess the first film. Despite having CGI that has aged terribly over the last 14 years, the first film in the franchise is dreadfully okay. The acting isn’t great, but the concept it is introducing is original for the time and it creates a potentially scary situation. Out of all the five films, it is the scariest because everything is new, but again, bad CGI takes away some of the frights. Some of the scenes felt straight out of a video game, but it still wasn’t high art in any sense of the word.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse introduces us to some video game characters and a lot more action. Action at the expense of horror. Like, there are no fears at all in this movie. The zombies aren’t scary, and Nemesis NEVER feels scary, just threatening and powerful. For a horror franchise to immediately drop large portions of horror is a terrible move to make. But at least this film feels like the next step in the franchise and continues the plot along decently, despite the dumb teaser at the end. It is still bad and should feel bad, but there were some attempts there.

Resident Evil: Extinction takes the series in a completely different direction than anyone expected. The point of it was to make a scarier movie with a lot of it set during the day instead of night like normal zombie flicks. The plot was a bit of a weaker point in this film as well, but it would have been stronger had the next two movies not done what they did. It did increase some of the horror elements from the first film, not to the same level, but that is why I left it as okay. Mad Max and Zombies is a fun crossover idea and the film once again got a closer to some sort of closure.

Wow how did Umbrella get their logo to burn on a building like that? Is that a metaphor?!

Resident Evil: Afterlife is where the franchise starts to hit garbage fire mode. To talk about both films, neither really seem to feature that strongly of a horror element. Once again, these films feel incredibly action oriented, with very weak plots. And by weak plots, I mean the films should barely exist. After the third film, we have Alice heading to stop Umbrella Corp’s main office in Tokyo. Awesome, she does that early in the film, then most of the film is instead dealing with this being stuck in a prison, trying to get on a ship situation. This is not really a new plot line from this franchise or from zombie films in general.

And in the fifth film, we start off once again LOCKED IN A GODDAMN UMBRELLA BUILDING. And the entire focus of the movie is to get out of the building. Just like movie one. Just like movie four. They are just rehashing the same plot line and not moving the plot along. Sure, at the end of the movie, they escape the place that they were. But they are solving problems that the films itself create.

After the third film, we can sort of assume where the franchise is going and will go. And instead of delivering that outcome, the fourth film is almost entirely a filler plot line. At the end of the fourth film, we know where the franchise should go, and instead of getting there, it is entirely filled with a different fucking filler plot line. They create and solve issues in the movie itself at the expense of telling a story and it is downright furious.

Sure, they might have some cool sequences in them. They were movies made for 3D and IMAX screens. But they abandoned the genre of horror, retold the first plot in worse ways, and refused to give us growth, which is goddamn necessary that late in to a franchise.

I can hope and hope amongst all things that the next film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, will bring us the plot we have been looking forward to. But I honestly am just assuming it will also end on a bad cliffhanger and not actually be the final movie. Because money. And dicks.

Zoolander Zoolander Zoolander!

Fifteen years ish ago, I remember being a young impressionable teenager watching it for the first time. I laughed so much, so long. I quoted it so far for the rest of my life. It is probably one of my favorite comedies of all time and I am always in the mood for it. Hell, I remember putting in the DVD just to watch the Special Features Menu, because it was also hilarious. THE MENU!

The idea of a sequel has been kicked around for a long, long time. And yes, it has been delayed. But in this case, I am glad. If they forced a sequel, it would probably be shit. I expect they waited for a good script. I hope they waited for a good script.

Because it is clear that Dumb and Dumber To wasn’t waiting for the right script. They just got the idea, ran with it, and gave us a pile of shit. Please Zoolander 2, don’t be a pile of shit. Pleaaaase.

Bamblesport Cunnilingus was in it, so it can’t be completely shit!

Fifteen years ago, Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) saved the Prime Minister of Malaysia with his Magnum look and changed the world of fashion forever. Mugatu (Will Ferrell), Katinka Ingabogovinanana (Milla Jovovich), and Evil DJ (Justin Theroux) went to jail! But bad stuff started to happen almost immediately.

Without spoilers, Zoolander soon found himself without his wife (Christine Taylor) and son (Cyrus Arnold), with Hansel (Owen Wilson) refusing to speak to him, and a laughing stock again in the world. So he left to become a Hermit, living alone in a cabin on a mountain.

Now, in 2016, he receives an invitation to Rome, by Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig), the new big fashion person. Derek, along with Hansal, are to star in a new campaign and revitalize their careers. Derek wants to do it to get his family back. Hansal wants to do it to run away from his problems, from being part of a family.

Also, a whole bunch of celebrities are being killed. Including Justin Bieber! When they die, they seem to have Zoolander’s classic look on their face. This investigation is being led by Interpol’s Fashion Police division, Valentina (Penelope Cruz).

And featuring Kyle Mooney as a fashion designer, Sting, Kiefer Sutherland and Susan Sarandon as themselves, Fred Armisen as an 11 year old boy, and the return of Billy Zane and Nathan Lee Graham as Todd.

Zoolander’s hands are being played by Jerry Stiller.

Sure enough, Zoolander 2 is not as good as the first film, but in reality that was impossible. Humor was a different beast in the last 90’s and early 2000’s. If they went for a film with the exact same tone, it would most likely feel just dated.

But damn it, this sequel gave me Zoolander and Hansel back, and they are acting like they never went away. These felt like the characters, the movie was true to them, and they didn’t become warped caricatures. Well, maybe a little warped. But not terrible. I believed everything they did and said.

The film had a few unique laugh moments that had me in stitches. They rehash a lot of the old jokes, but it thankfully isn’t a majority of the film like how it felt for Anchorman 2. They come and go, sometimes they stick, some time they don’t. For instance, the Hansel being so hot joke? It was poorly placed and made it completely shit.

I would probably have given this a higher grade, for enjoyability and nostalgia, but the plot is almost incomprehensible. Looking back on it, trying to figure out character actions, none of it seems to make sense. I can’t even tell if Billy Zane is supposed to be a bad guy. It has a large conspiracy element like the first film, but this one is so badly done I can’t imagine how they thought it was a good idea.

And for the most part, the cameos were disappointing. The only two that had a large presence were Bieber and Sutherland. Everyone else was one joke and done, quite a shame.

Overall, you should definitely watch the film if you want more Zoolander. But you might not have to see it in theater.

Its amazing how non observant I am in the real world. I recognized all the names on the movie Stone, but I must have gotten lazy after the first two and wandered off each time. Had I known this was a movie with Edward Norton, I would have watched this much sooner.

Doesn’t mean it is good. Just means I like his acting.

And his hair style choices. I have always wanted corn rows. Edward Norton is now saying I should try it out.

The story is actually about Jack (Robert De Niro), a parole officer who is a few weeks from retirement (of course). His next and last case involves the prisoner who wants to be called Stone (Norton), and has been in Prison for about five years in a nine year sentence. He claims to be on a new path, spiritually, and got put in prison for arson. He also describes his wife, Lucy (Milla Jovovich), as an Alien from another planet due to how hot she is. She is depicted as someone super active, sexually, and a elementary school teacher. Wooo.

Eventually, through some prodding, Lucy finally convinces Jack to meet up with him to talk about releasing her husband. And she seduces them and sex happens. Jack, who has never broken a law in his life, and never cheated before, but isn’t necessarily a good guy, just good at seeing through bull shit. He has been married for 40 years (to Frances Conroy), but the marriage is loveless and stale, mostly his fault, and she feels trapped in the house.

Eventually Stone gets out of jail, per Jack’s permission. BUT WILL I MEAN DIRE CONSEQUENCES?

Also, Milla is a lot more naked in this movie than you’d have guessed.

So, what starts off as a movie in the thriller suspense genre, at some point turns into straight drama, sort of spiritual based, sort of fate based. Sort of something else. I was definitely interested in the beginning of the film, but found myself bored and not liking the way it was going.

The acting in it, don’t get me wrong, it was good. Even Milla. But the story? That felt weak. Not only that, but unfinished to me, and then at the end, pointless.

I like there to be a point to my time watching movies, and I feel like I wasted 2 hours. Good acting is not the only important thing to a good movie.

What story is more cherished than The Three Musketeers?

Apparently a lot of them. You know how hard it was for me to find someone who knew the actual plot of The Three Musketeers book? I had never read it, nor have I really seen another movie with them in it. Maybe a wishbone episode, but I don’t remember it. I know I am not comparing the book to this new movie, but while watching it, I knew pretty certainly that some of the events in the movie could not have possibly been in the book.

After all, if they had been, that book might be a lot cooler.

This scene was one of the few that made me question if this was the actual story or not.

The story begins with the Three Musketeers trying to unlock Leonardo da Vinci’s secret tomb, where his most awesome invention blueprints were stored. Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans) and Porthos (Ray Stevenson) are all introduced (even with frozen framed name cards!), as is Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich). Each are shown their general personality, and how they prefer to conduct business and fight.

But after acquiring the plans for the warship…betrayal! In the form of the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). The Musketeer program is disbanded at that point. A year later, D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman, aka the Percy Jackson) is training with his father, a former musketeer. He dreams of going to Paris and becoming one himself, and so, you know, does that.

In Paris, he starts off on the wrong foot, pissing off Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen), captain of the Cardinal Richelieu’s (Christoph Waltz) guard. Despite barely escaping, while running through Paris, he also encounters each of the Musketeers, offends them too, and offers them each a duel an hour apart. Then he is like, oh shit, Musketeers.

They get arrested for illegal dueling, but because they took out 40 men in the process, the king (Freddie Fox) reinstates the Musketeers. Just in time. Because the Duke wants to go to war with France. So he arranges that love notes be found in the queen’s (Juno Temple) desk, that say she was having an affair with the duke, and had given him certain rare diamonds (which he has hence stolen). The king will be forced to execute his wife, and go to war, but because he is so young, the public wont like it, and reinstate someone else instead.

Unless the Musketeers can fix the day! Also there is a hot lady in waiting Constance (Gabriella Wilde) who totally wants D’Artagnan.

Lerman (center) looks like his head is out of place each scene with that hair.

How’d you like that summary? If you actually read the book, you’d notice obvious differences. I think Milady plays a way more important role in this movie, than the books. I think also the affair is real in the books (maybe here too? Could be argued). Also, warships.

This movie is also VERY colorful. The colors pop out, at first kind of distracted me (in the first throne room scene), but I got used to it and overall liked it.

Also, this movie reminded me of TONS of other movies. The movie did had an overall epic feel, similar to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl, and not just because of Orlando Bloom. If anything this movie succeeds because of everyone else. There was also a scene that was a clear homage to Mission Impossible. But instead of lasers, I assume just had to see trip wires that would ring bells, or something.

Did I mention warships?

If I had a big complaint, I would say they didn’t flesh out the three musketeers personality wise enough. They do a bit at the beginning, and some other moments, but this is clearly an action driven movie. I will say that all the musketeers, in my eyes, did a fantastic job, and the kid. Seriously, they all kicked some ass. I liked the steampunk like warships involved, and found it odd that I was so captivated by a movie that did so bad in the box office.

GUYS. WARSHIPS. GUYS.

Ahh! Fooled again!

When I saw the movie title A Perfect Getaway, you know what I assumed it was about? Cars. Crime. Running away from crime maybe and being awesome on a beach. Something with action and betrayal. All of that you know?

Turns out I was wrong. Perfect Getaway refers to the location (this location being someplace in Hawaii). And it is a lie. It isn’t really perfect. Because there is a couple of psychopaths apparently running around, murdering couples. What!? DID I ACCIDENTALLY WATCH A HORROR? Fuck!

My perfect getaway is nerd-free. Including myself.

Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn are a couple. Oh yeah, start suspending your belief. They just got married, so they want to go on a vacation. Steve being a movie writer or something, and Milla just being whatever. Their goal is to hike out to a remote part of Hawaii, that you need permits to camp in, and enjoy being alone and free!

But they run into other people. Like Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton, two free spirited hitch hikers on the side of the road, who they don’t give a ride to. Yes, Thor plays a dirty hippie like character. They refrain from showing you his god like face at the beginning, because you need time to fully comprehend this fact.

After they run away from them, they run into Timothy Olyphant in the wilderness, who ends up saving Milla’s life. They follow him, since he is way cooler, and they find out he has a woman of his own in Kiele Sanchez. They also end up finding out that a newlywed couple was killed in a hotel where both groups had just come from a few days prior. Not only that, but they know a couple killed them, and removed their teeth and finger nails to make it so they couldn’t be identified.

Well, that’s creepy.

But who did it? Who can trust who? Or, is their an additional couple out in the wilderness, stalking them, trying to kill them all?

Or was it just Thor? He seems twisted.

So, obviously once I realized this whole movie was about an island and not car racing, I had to take a step back. Make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The questions you would wonder are answered about 3/5 of the way through, and are pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it then goes through a whole bunch of flashbacks, that really take you out of the moment. You know, since it takes you through the last few days again. So unnecessary feeling.

After the the action tends to pick up again, or at least panic does. They do a lot of interesting camera shots, that seems like they were just made for trailers, and seem weird in an actual movie to me. So, despite it being an interesting story, I think the film shot itself in the foot with the last 2/5. Which just disappoints me even further.

But hey, I could just be upset that there was only one car scene at all.

I guess the first and most obvious thing to note about this movie is it is called Faces in the Crowd, not to be confused with A Face in the Crowd.

This movie, which IMDB calls a Horror-Thriller despite being more of a Thriller-Drama (unnecessary semantics are unnecessary), stars Milla Jovovich and many other people who I haven’t really seen before. Thankfully, who they are is not an important aspect of this movie.

Milla is just a kindergarten or something teacher, having a corporate boy friend, going to the clubs with her friends, living free. But she accidentally witnesses another girl getting stabbed and murdered (and then raped). Talk about a way to ruin your night!

“Alright, murdered then raped? Sorry. That is too much for me.”

Turns out that is what some local serial killer has been doing. She runs, he attacks, she falls off a bridge and hits her head. Wake up later, FREAK OUT! Apparently she comes down with something called Prosopagnosia, or face blindness? Sounds completely made up in the movie. She has trouble recognizing faces. I assume the movie went for the most extreme way of her having this condition. In her class room, all the girls look alike, as do all the boys. When she loses site of a persons face, like looking away and looking back, it looks different to her. A lot of faces just keep changing, including her own.

At first it is hard to notice. Overall, it is just super annoying for the viewers. So, the movie is mostly her being paranoid that the killer will come after her still, in case she does remember how to recognize him. The ending is reminiscent of the classic clone fight scenario. You know. When two people are identical and fighting, and you have to shoot one of them. But you may mess up!

Seriously. This isn’t spoilers. The movie has jerk boyfriends/friends, and a lot of Milla freaking out. I never really care about any other character in the movie. Just wanted the stupid concept movie to be over.

Now Progeria is a P based disease I would love a thriller movie about.