Filmed for 3D, Resident Evil: Afterlife delivers wonderful effects, great action and a few surprises.
While I admit that a few of the CGI effects were a bit amateurish, the overall look and feel of the film was right on. Not intending to be top-notch cinema, Director Paul W.S. Anderson keeps the film flowing nicely. Not once did I feel a let down in the pacing of the film.
The franchise star, Milla Jovovich, loves her role [as Alice--or Project Alice], and it shows. She is stunning to look at, and equally stunning in her stunt work. In my opinion the film would be far less impressive if Jovovich was not doing the bulk of her characters' stunts as edits would definitely take away from the action.
The supporting cast of Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Wentworth Miller, Boris Kodjoe, and Spencer Locke are all great in their roles. They helped make the film not only good, but fun as well. Shawn Roberts replaced Jason O'Mara as Chairman Wesker. While he did a good Job, I would have preferred O'Mara in the role simply because he's a better actor and because he was the actor who introduced film audiences to the character of Albert Wesker.
Of course, being based on a video game series, the movie sets up the next chapter by introducing yet another character at the very end of the film; as well as a wonderful visual of numerous attack planes approaching Alice.
For fans of the film franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife will not disappoint. It was fun to watch from the opening scene to the last; and it leaves you wanting more! Go see this film! You won't be disappointed.
I'll definitely see this one again, and yes, I'll buy it on DVD!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Summer Movie Wrap-Up
The follow excerpts are a 2010 Summer Box Office wrap-up covering receipts, trends, etc. The story that these excerpts were taken from was published in the NY Times. The reporter is Brooks Barnes.
--Hollywood’s summer may have been tepid — movie theater attendance was the lowest in over a decade — but the big-budget, big-risk stretch delivered an unusually robust array of tea leaves for studios to read as they make decisions for the seasons ahead.
--First, the numbers. Attendance from the first weekend in May through Labor Day is projected to total about 552 million, the lowest tally since 1997, when 540 million people turned up in the same period, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box office data. Revenue for the period — which typically accounts for 40 percent of the industry’s annual ticket sales — totaled $4.35 billion, a 2 percent increase from last year.
--Sharply higher prices for tickets across the board, but especially for 3-D presentations, drove the increase. The worry, as seen in poor results for recent 3-D releases like “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” is that theater chains and studios have overreached on pricing. “We suspect some consumers are choosing 2-D movies solely to reduce the cost of their movie-going experience,” wrote Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, in an Aug. 23 research note.
--So studios are starting to think more carefully about which titles make sense to release in 3-D and which do not. Part of the challenge in a post-“Avatar” Hollywood, however, is that presenting a film in 3-D is one way to build a release into a must-see event — a crucial part of movie marketing in the age of 50-inch flat-screen televisions.
Some studios were burned over the summer by pushing too hard to “eventize” movies. Walt Disney Studios, for instance, trumpeted May 28 in enormous red lettering on virtually every piece of advertising for “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” The goal was to blast the film’s opening date into the minds of consumers, but instead the tactic drove expectations so high that “Prince” was quickly branded a bomb despite selling $330 million in tickets at the global box office.
--“You can hype up a movie like crazy, but consumers are smart and can smell a con job,” said Phil Contrino, editor of BoxOffice.com. “It has to be substance over style.”
--No one would accuse Mr. Nolan of soft-pedaling substance. His “Inception,” backed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures, was the breakout blockbuster of the summer, racking up about $660 million in ticket sales. “Everybody looked at us and said, ‘Why are you releasing a movie this smart in the middle of July?’ ” said Dan Fellman, Warner’s president for distribution. “Guess what? The summer isn’t just for dopes.”
--Stars received a sharply mixed reception, which has been the case lately. It was certainly a good summer for Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in “Inception” as an invader of people’s dreams. Also faring well were Angelina Jolie, who turned an old-fashioned spy caper (“Salt”) into a hit, and Adam Sandler, who powered an ensemble comedy (“Grown Ups”) into the stratosphere.
--Flopping this summer were Nicolas Cage, whose “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” died on arrival, and Michael Cera, whose quirky “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” won positive reviews but failed to draw a mainstream audience. Mr. Cera badly needed a hit: “Pilgrim” was his fifth big-screen dud in a row. Also disappointing were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, who fizzled in the action comedy “Knight and Day,” and Zac Efron, whose weepy “Charlie St. Cloud” landed with a thud.
--The No. 1 movie of the summer had no stars, at least on screen: “Toy Story 3” topped the North American box office with over $405 million and had a global total of over $1 billion. “Iron Man 2” was second, with $312 million ($622 million total), and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” was third, with $298 million ($655 million total).
It was a quiet summer for specialty films, with no picture managing to cross over to a mainstream audience. “The Kids Are All Right” came the closest with about $19 million. (The threshold for a crossover hit is typically in the vicinity of $30 million.)
--[It was] an uncharacteristically soft summer for Warner [Brothers]. The success of “Inception” was counterbalanced by a disastrous result for “Jonah Hex,”which sold just $10.5 million in tickets and cooled off Megan Fox’s career. The critically reviled “Sex and the City 2” was also a substantial disappointment; ticket sales lagged behind the first installment by 30 percent.
--[Universal's] “Despicable Me” was a runaway hit, selling over $237 million in tickets ; but “Get Him to the Greek” and “Robin Hood” both misfired.
--Of the major studios Fox had the worst summer. None of its titles cracked the Top 10, as “The A-Team,” “Marmaduke” and “Knight and Day” all went down in flames.
--Paramount Pictures was the most successful by volume; for the summer its releases racked up over $770 million at the domestic box office. “The Last Airbender” and “Dinner for Schmucks” and “Shrek Forever After,” [led the way for the studio].
--Sony’s modestly budgeted remake of “The Karate Kid” was one of the summer’s biggest surprises, rocketing to $176 million in North America. Although “Eat Pray Love” was soft, the studio also scored with “Grown Ups,” “Salt” and “The Other Guys.” (By Brooks Barnes, NY Times 05 Sept. 2010)
*So, not a stellar summer for 2010. I personally believe that Hollywood's trend of remaking films to "updated" versions is beginning to backfire. This is likely most true amongst the over 35 year old theater goers who are just getting tired of remakes that generally end up being worse than the classic original. Looking ahead, the movie landscape looks fairly bleak through the end of the year.
Aside from the next Chronicles of Narnia installment, Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," "Mega-Mind," the little known SciFi flick "Skyline," the next (oh, Kill me now!) book of "Harry Potter," the much hyped "Tron: Legacy," and the inexplicable remake of "True Grit," the box office does not look to be kind to Hollywood. Let's all hope that 2011 brings better, original material; and tosses aside the lazy screenwriters who are too untalented to draft new, fresh storylines.
--Hollywood’s summer may have been tepid — movie theater attendance was the lowest in over a decade — but the big-budget, big-risk stretch delivered an unusually robust array of tea leaves for studios to read as they make decisions for the seasons ahead.
--First, the numbers. Attendance from the first weekend in May through Labor Day is projected to total about 552 million, the lowest tally since 1997, when 540 million people turned up in the same period, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box office data. Revenue for the period — which typically accounts for 40 percent of the industry’s annual ticket sales — totaled $4.35 billion, a 2 percent increase from last year.
--Sharply higher prices for tickets across the board, but especially for 3-D presentations, drove the increase. The worry, as seen in poor results for recent 3-D releases like “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” is that theater chains and studios have overreached on pricing. “We suspect some consumers are choosing 2-D movies solely to reduce the cost of their movie-going experience,” wrote Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, in an Aug. 23 research note.
--So studios are starting to think more carefully about which titles make sense to release in 3-D and which do not. Part of the challenge in a post-“Avatar” Hollywood, however, is that presenting a film in 3-D is one way to build a release into a must-see event — a crucial part of movie marketing in the age of 50-inch flat-screen televisions.
Some studios were burned over the summer by pushing too hard to “eventize” movies. Walt Disney Studios, for instance, trumpeted May 28 in enormous red lettering on virtually every piece of advertising for “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” The goal was to blast the film’s opening date into the minds of consumers, but instead the tactic drove expectations so high that “Prince” was quickly branded a bomb despite selling $330 million in tickets at the global box office.
--“You can hype up a movie like crazy, but consumers are smart and can smell a con job,” said Phil Contrino, editor of BoxOffice.com. “It has to be substance over style.”
--No one would accuse Mr. Nolan of soft-pedaling substance. His “Inception,” backed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures, was the breakout blockbuster of the summer, racking up about $660 million in ticket sales. “Everybody looked at us and said, ‘Why are you releasing a movie this smart in the middle of July?’ ” said Dan Fellman, Warner’s president for distribution. “Guess what? The summer isn’t just for dopes.”
--Stars received a sharply mixed reception, which has been the case lately. It was certainly a good summer for Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in “Inception” as an invader of people’s dreams. Also faring well were Angelina Jolie, who turned an old-fashioned spy caper (“Salt”) into a hit, and Adam Sandler, who powered an ensemble comedy (“Grown Ups”) into the stratosphere.
--Flopping this summer were Nicolas Cage, whose “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” died on arrival, and Michael Cera, whose quirky “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” won positive reviews but failed to draw a mainstream audience. Mr. Cera badly needed a hit: “Pilgrim” was his fifth big-screen dud in a row. Also disappointing were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, who fizzled in the action comedy “Knight and Day,” and Zac Efron, whose weepy “Charlie St. Cloud” landed with a thud.
--The No. 1 movie of the summer had no stars, at least on screen: “Toy Story 3” topped the North American box office with over $405 million and had a global total of over $1 billion. “Iron Man 2” was second, with $312 million ($622 million total), and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” was third, with $298 million ($655 million total).
It was a quiet summer for specialty films, with no picture managing to cross over to a mainstream audience. “The Kids Are All Right” came the closest with about $19 million. (The threshold for a crossover hit is typically in the vicinity of $30 million.)
--[It was] an uncharacteristically soft summer for Warner [Brothers]. The success of “Inception” was counterbalanced by a disastrous result for “Jonah Hex,”which sold just $10.5 million in tickets and cooled off Megan Fox’s career. The critically reviled “Sex and the City 2” was also a substantial disappointment; ticket sales lagged behind the first installment by 30 percent.
--[Universal's] “Despicable Me” was a runaway hit, selling over $237 million in tickets ; but “Get Him to the Greek” and “Robin Hood” both misfired.
--Of the major studios Fox had the worst summer. None of its titles cracked the Top 10, as “The A-Team,” “Marmaduke” and “Knight and Day” all went down in flames.
--Paramount Pictures was the most successful by volume; for the summer its releases racked up over $770 million at the domestic box office. “The Last Airbender” and “Dinner for Schmucks” and “Shrek Forever After,” [led the way for the studio].
--Sony’s modestly budgeted remake of “The Karate Kid” was one of the summer’s biggest surprises, rocketing to $176 million in North America. Although “Eat Pray Love” was soft, the studio also scored with “Grown Ups,” “Salt” and “The Other Guys.” (By Brooks Barnes, NY Times 05 Sept. 2010)
*So, not a stellar summer for 2010. I personally believe that Hollywood's trend of remaking films to "updated" versions is beginning to backfire. This is likely most true amongst the over 35 year old theater goers who are just getting tired of remakes that generally end up being worse than the classic original. Looking ahead, the movie landscape looks fairly bleak through the end of the year.
Aside from the next Chronicles of Narnia installment, Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," "Mega-Mind," the little known SciFi flick "Skyline," the next (oh, Kill me now!) book of "Harry Potter," the much hyped "Tron: Legacy," and the inexplicable remake of "True Grit," the box office does not look to be kind to Hollywood. Let's all hope that 2011 brings better, original material; and tosses aside the lazy screenwriters who are too untalented to draft new, fresh storylines.
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