FILM REVIEW OF ''WARM BODIES" (2013)

When Hollywood started making zombie movies, filmmakers used voodoo as the means of controlling the dead.  The first genuine zombie flick, "White Zombie" (1932), featured Bela Lugosi of "Dracula" infamy as a sinister zombie master who owns a sugar cane plantation and exploits zombies as his labor force.  While most zombie movies were set in the West Indies, Hollywood didn't confine its sub-genre of the horror movie strictly to the Caribbean.  For example, "Revolt of the Zombies" took place in Cambodia.  Nevertheless, standard-issue zombie movies, such as "King of the Zombies" (1941), "I Walked with a Zombie" (1943), and "Zombies on Broadway" (1936), clung to the traditional Caribbean setting.  Meantime, "Revenge of the Zombies" (1943) occurred in Louisiana.  A fiendish Nazi scientist toiled to forge zombies to supplement the ranks of Hitler's Third Reich.  Occasionally, exceptions to the rule cropped up, like the first Caped Crusader serial "Batman" (1943) where a devilish Japanese spy on American soil converted individuals into mindless zombies by means of electricity. Apparently, nobody felt like experimenting drastically with the zombie formula, aside from relocating them beyond the West Indies.

Pittsburgh-based writer & director George A. Romero reimagined the zombie formula in 1968 with his classic chiller "Night of the Living Dead." Ironically, nothing like a global apocalypse had spawned zombies until Romero conjured up such a notion.  Romeo's zombie slayers aimed for the head when they shot zombies.  The next change came about courtesy of the Italian-made epic "Nightmare City" (1980) where zombies no longer lurched about but now ran like track superstars.  Aside from this minor formula tweaking, the biggest difference in post "Night of the Living Dead" zombie sagas has been the use of either an apocalypse or a virus to trigger an outbreak of zombie-mania. Just when you thought zombie films were stuck in a rut, Hollywood brought Seattle-based writer Isaac Marion's novel "Warm Bodies" to the screen, and movies about the undead will no longer will be the same. Simon and Schuster published the inventive book in 2010. 

"50/50" writer & director Jonathan Levine's adaptation of Marion's "Warm Bodies" is surprisingly captivating. A comparison between what occurs on screen and in Marion's book suggests Levine took minimal liberties with the source material.  This innovative makeover of a moribund genre takes matters beyond anything that either "Zombieland" or the "Resident Evil" franchise has tried in terms of permutation.  Basically, "Warm Bodies" takes zombie movies to the next level that gore-hound purists may not appreciate.  Levine doesn't pile up gratuitous amounts of blood and gore with shocking revelations to keep you stimulated.  Sure, zombies feed on the living, and they prefer the brain as an entrée. 

Nevertheless, Levine doesn't make a spectacle out of gut-munching for the sake of gut-munching. He obscures the feeding frenzy to accommodate a PG-13 rating.  First, the "Warm Bodies" zombies consume brains to experience the memories of those they've slain.  They just don't eat brains for no reason.  The idea you can derive knowledge from the consumption of an opponent's gray matter is fanciful.  Some cultures have argued eating the heart of an antagonist imparts strength to the victor.  Second, "Warm Bodies" has classified zombies as either good or bad.  Previously, all zombies were bad.  Creating a division between good and evil zombies endows the genre with greater sophistication.  In the "Warm Bodies" universe, bonies are the bad zombies.  Bonies are zombies who tear the skin off their bodies and resembled mummified skeletons. They move like lightning and they are treacherous.  They feast on the living as well as some of the dead. They are reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen's sword-wielding skeletons in the 1963 fantasy "Jason and the Argonauts."  Following Marion's lead, Levine has appropriated virtually everything else from the genre but cleverly has reconstituted the subject matter. 

Basically, Levine has synthesized the traditional zombie movie with a romantic comedy.  Like its literary source material, "Warm Bodies" makes allusions to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."  Indeed, there is even a brief balcony scene, though nothing like the Shakespeare version.  Our hero, a zombie known only as R (Nicholas Hoult of "X-Men: First Class") because he cannot remember his name, has spent most of the last eight years gnawing on humans.  When he doesn’t join his dead pals, like M (Rob Corddry), for group hunting trips, he enjoys his vinyl collection on a stereo in a derelict commercial jetliner.  You see, he holes up in an abandoned plane.  All the zombies congregate at the local airport.  Similarly, zombies in both George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) and Zack Snyder's 2004 remake gravitated toward a shopping mall. After they became zombies, they were drawn by memories of the good times that they had had when they shopped together there.  Our lovesick zombie falls big-time for a young female zombie fighter, Julie (Teresa Palmer of "I Am Number Four"), after he chomps her boyfriend Perry’s brain.

Perry (David Franco), Julie, Nora (Analeigh Tipton), and others had left their heavily-fortified camp to scavenge the zombie infested outskirts of their fallen city for medical supplies.  When the zombies storm the medical supply room, R kills Perry, chews his brain, and feels smitten by Julie since he is seeing her from Perry’s perspective.  Incredibly, these sentiments of love reanimate his heart.  Now, R swears to protect Julie from the rest of his kind.  He escorts her back to his jetliner, and they grow to love each other.  According to this imaginative premise, biting into brains has the side effect of giving the undead a cerebral blast from the past.  If you shun run-of-the-mill zombie movies, "Warm Bodies" may change your attitude toward Z-pictures. This off-beat epic unites the living and the dead as allies in their collective war against the wicked bonies.  The happily ever after ending may curdle in the mouths of zombie purists. Nevertheless, "Warm Bodies" qualifies as the best thing that has happened to zombie movies since George A. Romero.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION" (2012)

The fifth installment of the “Resident Evil” franchise “Resident Evil: Retribution” (*** out of ****) gives new meaning to the old saying: "A woman's work is never done."  Actress Milla Jovovich cavorts in her trademark, skin-tight, black outfit, wields weapons of every description which rarely run out of bullets, and performs more hyperactive gravity-defying stunts in some exotic new locales.  Indeed, this improbable science fiction fantasy series about an extremely evil corporation gone amuck should have run out of steam several sequels ago.  Nevertheless, writer and director Paul W.S. Anderson knows how to keep things exciting, and “Resident Evil: Retribution” represents another apex in the world of the villainous Umbrella Corporation versus Alice.  Basically, despite its tie-in with the Capcom survivalist video game, the “Resident Evil” movies are about Alice in zombie land versus some seriously mutated zombies along with some other scary villains.  This time around Anderson addresses the usual problem that confounds any film franchise which has endured as long as the “Resident Evil” epics.  Remember, the first “Resident Evil” appeared ten years ago!  If you haven’t seen the original film or the previous installment, how would you know what is happening?  Anderson’s solution is simplicity itself.  He presents us with an inordinate amount of back story during this nimble R-rated actioneer’s first quarter hour.  “Resident Evil: Retribution” resumes the action where “Resident Evil: Afterlife” concluded.  This gives Anderson that opportunity to hit ‘replay’ and we are treated to the last scene from the previous movie “Resident Evil: Afterlife” shown in reverse as well as forward.  As repetitive as this may seem, the scene aboard the Umbrella Corporation's Arcadia freighter where Alice and company are having the firefight of the century with hundreds of evil Umbrella helicopters is worth a rewind or two.   Those helicopters look pretty sinister, too.

After the bullet-riddled battle on the supertanker from “Resident Evil: Afterlife,”  Anderson presents an informative  recap of the entire franchise with Alice narrating her role in the saga.  Anybody who either missed or shunned earlier “Resident Evil” entries will know what their bearings are when “Retribution” unfolds its own narrative.  The chief villains in this entry are the Red Queen as well as Alice’s former compatriot Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) who sports a red scarab on her chest.  The Red Queen controls her through the scarab.   As the action opens, we find our indestructible heroine living a perfectly normal existence with a handsome hubby Carlos (Oded Fehr of “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” and “Extinction”) and their hearing impaired daughter Becky (Aryana Engineer of “Orphan”) in Raccoon City.  No sooner have we gotten used to this picture of domestic bliss than zombies burst out of nowhere and chaos rules.  What comes as an even greater surprise is that during her flight from these ravenous undead, Alice encounters her old friend Rain (Michelle Rodriguez of “The Fast and the Furious”) who picks up both Alice and Becky before the fleet-footing zombies can chomp her.   Unfortunately, Alice runs smack into husband who is now a zombie.  

Afterward, Alice awakens in an Umbrella Corporation interrogation room. She finds herself dressed much the same way she was at the end of the original “Resident Evil.”  Alice’s nemesis Jill wants Alice to reveal who she is working for.  Meantime, Alice wants Jill to remember that she once fought alongside her before the Red Queen gained mastery over her.  Just when the Umbrella baddies think that they have Alice cornered, somebody hacks into their system and gives Alice the opportunity to escape.  The Red Queen is an obnoxious little brat with a British accent who keeps reminding Alice that she will have her killed.  Meantime, the resistance forces campaigning against the Umbrella Corporation have to blast their way into a former Soviet submarine base where the Umbrella Corporation has constructed sophisticated mock-ups of Tokyo,  Moscow, Berlin, and New York City.  The only adversaries AWOL from this “Resident Evil” are the undead Dobermans.  At the same time, Anderson has brought back a giant galloping ogre beast along with two tall guys with gigantic mallets that look like meat tenderizers. 

The interesting thing about this “Resident Evil” entry is that Anderson never allows us to lose sight of the plot.  Good movies are like a car with bright headlights penetrating the murk on a dark road.  You always see where you are going, and Anderson inserts numerous recaps to keep us abreast of where we are.  Anderson also stages several acrobatic fights that look genuinely exhilarating.  Indeed, Alice rarely runs out of somebody to shoot.  At one point, our heroine actually runs out of bullets, but she resorts to a little battlefield salvage and appropriates some firearms from a fallen comrade who was gulped by a huge, four-legged ogre that also gobbled her daughter.  Alice learns later that the Umbrella Corporation imprinted all of the child’s memories in her mind. Worse, Alice discovers that the Umbrella Corporation has cloned scores of copies of herself.  The only thing that Anderson does that has been done already is the use of x-ray shots as bones are being broken during a fight; this gimmick was used first in the Jet Li thriller “Romeo Must Die.”  Eventually, Alice runs into an old adversary, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who has some dastardly ideas up his sleeve.  Wesker once commanded the Umbrella Corporation.  He appears here to bring Alice full circle with a revelation near the end that stuns her.

Most 3-D action movies constitute a painful experience.   Comparatively, the 3-D version of “Resident Evil: Retribution” surpasses the flat version.  Apparently, Anderson is the one of the few directors who understands that the best 3-D launches objects, whether an ax or a bullet, at the audience.  Too many contemporary 3-D movies are content to depict action in an environment that emphasizes depth rather than dimension.  Anderson relies on horror movie shocks and endless, noisy firefights to keep the action from flagging. “Resident Evil: Retribution” qualifies as an above-average 3-D fantasy that gives you a reason to wear those infuriating spectacles.  Skillfully staged action scenes, a slam-bang Tomandandy soundtrack, and ingenious production designs as well as settings make “Resident Evil: Retribution” worth watching.  Yes, “Resident Evil: Retribution” leaves things open for a sequel.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WHITE ZOMBIE" (1932)

Director Victor Halperin’s “White Zombie” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) boasts the distinction of being the first official Hollywood zombie epic.  Mind you, the undead here are not as pugnacious as  those in the cinema of George Romeo and his imitators.  Indeed, these zombies are similar because they are undead.  Nevertheless, they don’t crave the flesh of the living like insatiable cannibals.  Like Romeo’s zombies, Halperin’s undead are mindless hulks with neither a soul nor a trace of animation.  They walk slowly without alacrity, and they never utter so much as a syllable.  They stare without blinking.  Although their presence is eerie, they are not as scary as the individual who commands them.  

Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi) controls them as if they were puppets. The inspired casting of Lugosi as the insidious zombie master earmarks Halperin’s film  as a vintage horror chiller. Lugosi’s make-up augments another of his more evocative performances.  Some have argued with validity that “White Zombie” overshadows “Dracula,” and Lugosi emerges as more diabolical than he was as Stoker’s legendary vampire.  You won’t forget those intimidating close-ups of Lugosi’s eyes, especially when Halperin superimposes them over other images.   The moments when Murder is show carving statutes out of wax candles is as genuinely creepy as his intensely sinister stare.  Lugosi resembles Satan himself with his hair protruding in a widow’s peak on his forehead and his peculiar looking goatee.  Murder Legendre appears in formal attire and looks like a Catholic priest with his broad-brimmed hat when we see him for the first time in the night at the side of a road.  Appropriately enough, Halperin and scenarist Garnett Weston furnish Murder with a pet Vulture that emphasizes his villainy.   An actual vulture itself, this foul bird emits an eldritch cry that is pretty unnerving. The best moments in "White Zombie" feature Murder.

Despite the overall creepy atmosphere that Halperin forges with the zombies, the West Indies setting, and Lugosi, “White Zombie”  amounts to little more than a simple but formulaic tale of boy wins girl, boy loses girl, and boy wins girl back.  The film is reportedly based on William B. Seabrook’s novel “The Magic Island.” Essentially, a young Caucasian couple travels to the remote plantation of Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) in Haiti where they are to be married.  The first time that we see the couple they are riding in a carriage through the night.  They interrupt a ceremony in the middle of the road and learn to their surprise that it is none other than a funeral.  Their coachman explains that the natives bury corpses in the road to prevent anybody from digging them up and turning them into zombies.  Anyhow, since Beaumont met Madeline during the voyage from New York City to Port-au-Prince, he has yearned secretly for her hand, even though she plans to marry one of his employees.  Desperate to possess the girl, Beaumont manages to persuade Neil Parker (John Harron) and Madeline (Madge Bellamy) to delay their marriage until they reach his estate deep in the jungle.  

Despite his severe misgivings, Beaumont  strikes a Faustian deal with the villainous zombie master to seduce her.  The wealthy plantation owner visits Murder at his sugar mill where the villain employs zombies to harvest his crop.  One of the most spine-chilling scenes in “White Zombie” occurs in the sugar mill where Halperin shows the zombies delivering baskets of sugar cane.  The zombies tote the baskets atop their heads. They enter by means of a catwalk above a huge grinding mill that other zombies operate which grinds up the sugar.  One of the zombies loses his balance and falls into the grinder.  Of course, the zombie doesn’t scream in agony because it doesn’t experience any pain.  Halperin compounds the horror by not showing the poor fellow being ground up.  Similarly, the zombie doesn’t cry out in agony because it doesn’t experience any pain.  The scene is one of the strangest in “White Zombie.”  Initially, Beaumont is convinced that if he can separate Madeline from Neil for at least a month that he can win her over, but Murder argues otherwise.  Murder contends that Beaumont couldn’t woo Madeline away from Neil in a lifetime. Instead, Lugosi provides the jealous  Beaumont with a vial of medicine that will induce a state of death and send Madeline to her grave.  He instructs Beaumont to use only a “pin-point” in either a flower or a glass of wine.  As they descend the stairs together, the hopeless Beaumont realizes that he cannot dissuade Madeline from marrying Neil so he hands her a rose and she sniffs it fragrant aroma.  Not long afterward, Madeline collapses.

A missionary, Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn), has been summoned to perform the marriage.  Bruner has spent 30 years in the West Indies and is thoroughly familiar with the superstitions that guide the natives.  Cawthorn is suspicious of Beaumont’s motives.  The equivalent of a Professor Van Helsing, he comforts the disconsolate Neil during his separation from Madeline and acts as an intermediary between Neil and the Haitians.  At one point, in Murder’s house, he knocks out an assailant bent on killing Neil who had collapsed on a couch not far from where Madeline and Murder were sitting.

Of course, Neil, the grief-stricken suitor, cannot get his beloved bride out of his mind.  Halperin captures Neil’s desperation during a scene in a bar where only Neil is seen drinking while the shadows of other patrons dance across the walls.  This scene acquires a surreal quality because at one point Neil sees Madeline as one of the shadows.  He strikes up a friendship with Dr. Bruner.  Eventually, Neil wins Madeline back after Bruner and he ride to the far side of the island where they find the house of the undead. Neil enters Murder Legendre’s estate perched as it is on a cliff by the sea.  Ironically enough, in the finale, Charles Beaumont reunites Neil and Madeline when he breaks the spell that Murder has over Madeline by pushing the zombie master off the cliff and taking the plunge to follow him.  “White Zombie” concludes with Dr. Bruner asking Neil for a match as he had done when they first met at Beaumont’s plantation.  

FILM REVIEW OF ''RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE" (2010)

Spectacular 3-D visual effects, larger-than-life action situations, and audacious characters make the fifth entry in the “Resident Evil” franchise a lot of fun. Virtually everybody is referring to “Resident Evil: Afterlife” (*** out of ****) as the fourth entry. Basically, with some justification, each is ignoring director Makoto Kamiya’s “Resident Evil: Degeneration.” Mind you, “Resident Evil: Degeneration” was an animated epic without Alice as the chief protagonist, and it went straight-to-video when Sony released it back in 2008. As far as I’m considered, Sony scraped the bottom of the biohazard barrel with “Resident Evil: Degeneration.” Nothing about it was remotely memorable. Meanwhile, “Death Race” director Paul W.S. Anderson returns to the helm with the latest entry “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” For the record, Anderson directed the original “Resident Evil” (2002) and has penned all four of the live-action features as well as served as producer. “Resident Evil: Afterlife” qualifies as a crisp, invigorating, 97-minute actioneer never wears out its welcome. The digital 3-D prints are scintillating to see. When the butt-kicking heroic babe charges the camera and hurls those ninja throwing stars, you want to dodge them. Meaning, Sony Pictures produced the movie in 3-D. Lately, some studios have simply converted a 2-D movie into 3-D, and the movie looks terrible. This is not the case with “Resident Evil: Afterlife.”

This action-packed post-apocalyptic zombie flick unfolds in Tokyo. An outbreak of the T-virus devastates the capital city of Japan. By the time that practically everybody is dead, the Umbrella Corporation posts snipers to pick off wandering zombies. Without warning, the Umbrella snipers begin to die. Of course, Alice with her samurai sword is at work, and she brings multiple clones of herself armed with Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine guns. Initially, she kills close to 500 soldiers at the Umbrella Corporation’s underground headquarters and targets the evil Umbrella Corporation Chairman Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts of “Edge of Darkness”) who manages to escape in a twin-engine helicopter with wings. The real Alice sneaks aboard to kill him and he drains her of the mutant resources that the T-virus instilled in her. Basically, Alice goes back to being a mortal. Wesker, who has been infected by the virus, is struggling to control the effects of the T-virus, and he needs what has been rolling around in Alice’s system. Suddenly, the hover chopper jet that Wesker escaped in from the Tokyo Headquarters crashes on a mountainside. Miraculously, Alice survives. She sets off to find her friends, Claire Redfield (Ali Larter of “Final Destination”) and K-Mart (Spencer Locke of “Spanglish”), who flew off in helicopters to Alaska to find safety at a place called Arcadia. The catch is that Arcadia is a super tanker operated by the Umbrella Corporation. and they capture everybody who left the desert in the previous film “Resident Evil: Extinction.” The Umbrella henchmen slap a ruby red spider-like contraption onto their chests that robs them of their memory. Claire managed to escape, but K-Mart and over two thousand others were imprisoned to be used in more Umbrella experiments. Alice commandeers a propeller-driven plane, flies to Alaska and finds Claire. The ruby red spider like device on Claire’s chest has wiped out her memory, and Claire tries to kill Alice when they first met.

Together Alice and Claire wind up flying to Los Angeles. The city of Angels stands in cinders and only seven people have survived. They are holed up in a skyscraper prison, and zombies have laid siege to the building. Alice wings her way in and makes a cliffhanger landing on the prison roof. She almost overshoots the roof. By now, Claire has regained her memory. They meet a sleazy movie producer Bennett (Kim Coates of “Waterworld”), Bennett’s intern Kim Yong (newcomer Norman Yeung), basketball superstar Luther West (Boris Kodjoe of “Surrogates”), Angel Ortiz (Sergio Peris-Mencheta of “Love Ranch”), aspiring actress Crystal (Kacey Barnfield of “Popcorn”), and Wendell (Fulvio Cecere of “Watchmen”). Initially, they believe Alice and Claire have come to fly them to the nearby supertanker Arcadia. The supertanker is visible from the top of the prison, and they’ve heard the radio station about safety and food. Of course, Alice has to disappoint them. Nevertheless, Alice is intrigued about the ship. Claire meets her older brother Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller of ABC-TV’s “Prison Break”) who has been mistaken for a killer and locked by Bennett and his people. Chris has a way that they can escape from the prison and make it to the coast where they can get transportation to the Arcadia. Eventually, the zombies break into the prison after a Goliath dragging a gigantic hammer smashes his way through the locked gates and comes after Alice. As our heroes struggle to escape from the zombies, they are whittled down by the opposition.

Ultimately, the flaw that afflicts “Resident Evil: Afterlife” and all the “Resident Evil” sequels is story. In the original "Resident Evil," the Umbrella Corporation manufactured viral weapons and an industrial spy broke into the corporation’s Raccoon City complex and unleashed it. Everybody died, but they did not remain dead. They came back from the dead as ravenous flesh eating zombies. Not only did the men and women come back as zombies, but also the laboratory animals and mutant laboratory experiments. Since “Resident Evil,” Alice (Milla Jovovich) has been destroying zombies as well as Umbrella executives who want to carry on business as usual. Anderson hasn’t altered that serviceable narrative very much. You can only do so much with zombies unless you are cult filmmaker George Romeo, and Romeo changed zombies in “Land of the Dead.” Nevertheless, aside from the deadly familiarity that the franchise suffers from, everything else in “Resident Evil: Afterlife” looks fantastic. Jovovich’s gravity-defying antics, the exotic settings, a variety of new zombies: burrowing zombies, zombies octopus-like mandibles, water zombies, and a gigantic zombie with a gargantuan axe, as well as glossy production values, George Washington quarters as Alice’s shotgun ammo, a high body count, and the thumping tomandandy soundtrack make this adaptation of the Capcom survival horror videogame a blast to watch.