MY MOVIE SHELF: Resident Evil: Apocalypse

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 160  Days to go: 154

Movie #223:  Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Did you know there are five of these frigging things? Soon to be six. We only own the two, and my husband wants the rest of them, but I remember we watched the third one on demand several years ago and I’m convinced they’re pretty much all the same movie from here on out. They’re not bad movies, per se. I mean, they’re not good movies, but they can be kind of fun and entertaining in their way as long as you turn off the logic center of your brain for an hour and a half. Still doesn’t mean there’s much point in owning any more of them.

Anyway.

Welcome to Raccoon City, where all the hot lady fighters wear ridiculously skimpy clothing. I give you disgraced detective — Disgraced why? Who knows. Details are so last season. — Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), who is introduced by way of the tried-and-true method of revealing her at first not by her face but in stages of various provocative body parts. When Detective Valentine goes out for a tough night of zombie killing on her way to flee the city, she wears crazy thin stilettos, a micro mini and a tight strapless top (under her gun holster, obviously). You know how Robocop was a robot merged with a cop? Jill Valentine is like Strippercop.

Raccoon City is unfortunately infested with zombies (as we learned at the end of the last movie, which we didn’t really need to watch because the helpful synopsis at the start of this one was like a hundred times more informative and easier to follow) and everyone is trying to get out. But evil Umbrella Corporation overlord Cain (Thomas Kretschmann) locks the gates — free advice: never live in a walled-off city with lockable gates — and traps everyone inside to prevent the infestation from spreading. And as an added measure, he’s going to nuke the whole joint, but not before he plays a little Superbeing Hunger Games with dear old Alice (Milla Jovovich) and some gross mutated thing that used to be Matt from the first film. Luckily, the ridiculous leathery skin costuming they’ve got on this Nemesis project killing machine means they didn’t have to actually cast Eric Mabius again. Maybe this was when he was on Ugly Betty. (I derived all this information after the fact. They don’t actually spell it out or make it at all clear beforehand. Why get bogged down with plot?)

So Jill Valentine and some other people (a reporter, a couple S.W.A.T. — I mean “S.T.A.R.S” guys — and a regular Joe) are trapped inside the city, trying to escape with their lives and having varying levels of success. They’re joined by Alice, have a run-in or two with the Nemesis mutant, and get contacted by Mad Scientist Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris) offering them a way out if only they’ll rescue his daughter.

Alice actually shows up at the beginning, giving us a rundown of the previous film, then we see her escape from that medical facility again, then she kind of goes away and returns periodically, to the point where I was sort of consciously wondering where the hell the lead went. But then it turns out she’s been infected with the virus on purpose and it turned her into a super fighter (not that you have any chance of knowing this until they’re like, “oh by the way,” but whatever), so that’s when Cain has his death match between Alice and Nemesis mutant. Joke’s on him, though, because not only does she refuse to kill him when she realizes it’s Mutant Matt, but he refuses to kill her too. Aw!

They escape and Alice’s last act is to throw her body in front of a flying piece of debris to save the little girl, only it’s not her last act because when Umbrella Corporation people find her body, they put her in a Luke Skywalker tube of regenerating fluid — naked, of course, as per her contract — and she wakes up even stronger than before. (One of the techs says her physical and mental capacity is developing at a “geometric rate” which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but what do you expect from a movie that names its umbrella corporation The Umbrella Corporation based out of goddamned Raccoon City?) Now she  can murder people with her mind! She escapes again, into the waiting SUV of Jill Valentine and friends, though how they knew she was escaping right then is beyond me. Still, they might not have escaped at all if not for the head doctor letting them go and then “activating” her. DUN DUN DUN!

More stuff probably happens in the next eleventy quillion sequels, but I don’t have to watch those.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Mr. Deeds

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 191  Days to go: 192

Movie #186:  Mr. Deeds

I don’t get this movie at all. It’s supposed to be sweet but it falls pretty flat. It’s supposed to be funny but it’s not all that funny. And there are about a dozen plot points that never actually go anywhere.

Adam Sandler is Longfellow Deeds, a small town all-around nice guy who is the last living relative of billionaire Preston Blake (Harve Presnell). He inherits $40billion but for some reason he only gets it if he sells his shares of stock to the other board members of the company Blake owned. This part doesn’t make any sense, because the guy was obviously rich outside the company (he owns the New York Jets, for one, but that’ll come up later), but no explanation is given as to why he has to do this.

Winona Ryder plays Babe Bennett, a tabloid reporter for an Inside Edition-esque show who goes undercover as some helpless school nurse from Iowa in order to get close to Deeds. No idea why she has to do this either, but okay. She streaks her hair blonde for the purpose, though, so it must be really important. Of course, when footage leaks from their dates that only “Pam” AKA Babe could’ve taken, Deeds is completely dumbfounded as to how the tabloid show got it. He’s also apparently never read a book or seen a TV show, because Babe’s cover story is thin.

Now, Adam Sandler is dodgy enough in romantic comedies. I’ve only ever seen him successful in ones with Drew Barrymore, presumably because Drew is incredibly charming, the two have obvious affection for one another, and the pairing brings out the best things in Sandler. Winona Ryder, on the other hand, should not make romantic comedies. It’s not that she can’t be funny or that she isn’t an honestly talented actress, it’s just that she doesn’t have the particular type of comedy gene that works in romantic comedies — she’s not the right combination of sweet/jaded/wacky. If anything, Winona’s comedy genes are far more wry, erudite and self-deprecating, with a smattering of naiveté. It works in something like Mermaids or Beetlejuice or Heathers or even Reality Bites, but not in the kind of goofy-sweet films Adam Sandler attempts. It’s a poor combination.

Mr. Deeds features all sorts of odd casting, though. John Turturro is “very, very sneaky” butler Emilio, who is perhaps closer to Blake than anyone suspected — all possibilities of which are bizarre, no matter how you slice it. Peter Gallagher is ambiguously nefarious board member Chuck Cedar, who it is clear wants Deeds to sell his company shares for malicious purposes, but those purposes are never really clarified, nor is it clear why the acquisition of companies Cedar supposedly wants would require all the company’s fifty thousand current employees to be fired. But I guess conflict has to come from somewhere? It’s really dumb.

Conchata Ferrell is also around, mostly as a lovely friend and coworker from Deeds’s hometown, who near the end is needlessly turned into a punchline about having wanted to be a man. And Steve Buscemi wears horrible contact lenses that give him huge, wandering eyeballs that are frankly unsettling. But, boy is it hilarious when he doesn’t know where he’s looking! (Warning: Not hilarious at all.)

The movie is scattered and ambiguous at best, really. There’s the whole black foot Deeds got from “wicked bad frostbite” that is little more than an oddity on its own, but when seen in conjunction with Emilio’s foot fetish it’s as if the writers honestly couldn’t think of anything funnier than feet. Then there’s the Jets quarterback who comes in cussing about his contract, about which Deeds beats him up and then fires him, but nothing really comes of it at all except for the quarterback being forced to call and apologize by his father. It’s not a loose end, per se, but it feels like an incredibly elaborate set up for such a weak pay off. And of course, Chuck Cedar conspires with the tabloid show host (Jared Harris) to — do what, exactly? Expose that Pam is really Babe? I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help either the show or Chuck, but the movie paints it as if it does.

There is just time after time after time that the film makes incredibly dumb or nonsensical choices — even for a silly comedy engineered to be that way — and it honestly ruins the character of Longfellow Deeds who is actually a sweet, honorable and trusting man who is, truth be told, sort of a refreshing stretch for Sandler. Why the filmmakers would undermine that, though, is beyond me.

I don’t get this film at all, and I’m not sure why we have it.