Review of "Resident Evil: Extinction"

I saw the movie Resident Evil: Extinction last week. This is the 3rd movie in the Resident Evil series. The first one was Resident Evil, the second Resident Evil: Apocalypse. All these movies have received very low ratings from critics in Rottentomatoes.com, including this 3rd installment. That's why I didn't bother seeing the first and second movies. Why waste your money to see something that bad?

So of course it was with some apprehension that I stepped into the theater. I was a bit forced to see this movie because there were no better alternatives playing at the cineplex. You know what they say, when you go in with such low expectations, it usually ends up as a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Well, not really, no.

Surprisingly I kind of enjoyed this movie. There was nothing really special in terms of story or characters or cinematography, or really any aspect of the filmmaking. But it had decent special effects, some thrilling moments, and a climatic action sequence that was not bad. This is not a great movie, but it is certainly more entertaining than the critics make it out to be. The story is set in the future where a virus engineered by the "Umbrella Corporation", accidentally it seems, has spread throughout the world and infected virtually all the human population. The effects of this virus, simply put, is to turn people into zombies.

This third installment in the series deal with the survivors of the virus battling the scourge and trying to find a way to rehabilitate the earth. It's quite a simple story line, but there are some plot developments that make the story more or less watchable. The main character, Alice, is a bioengineered human with special powers, a creation of the Umbrella Corporation. She holds the key to the virus. The character is played quite well by Mila Jovovich.

After seeing this movie I now have a theory about critics' opinions and the actual quality of films. To put it simply, movies that receive bad ratings from critics and reviewers are not always that bad, but it depends on the genre. A comedy with low ratings are usually very bad and sometimes unwatchable. However, action movies with low ratings can sometimes still be enjoyable. I have at least two examples that stand out: Bad Boys II and this film. Bad Boys II especially got very low ratings (15% or something I think), but I found it enjoyable.

Comedies, on the other had, usually deserve their low ratings. Relatively recent examples would be "White Chicks" and "National Lampoon's Gold Digger". Those are some of the worst movies ever.

Having seen RE: Extinction, I am now intrigued by the series and plan to see the two earlier installments as well. I still have a videoezy DVD rental account so I'm going to use that to find and rent these films.

What makes for an interesting film

This is a subject that's been discussed a lot. A lot of books have been written on it. I know, since I've read quite a few. But let's not talk about cinematography, acting, or things like that for now. Let's just focus on the screenplay, the story. What makes a story?

I've read a number of screenwriting books and they all say the same things. You basically need a protagonist who wants to do something, to "achieve a goal". While trying to achieve this goal, he goes through a number of setbacks or challenges. He overcomes these challenges one by one (or fails these challenges one by one), until he comes face-to-face with a major challenge. This is the "critical point" or "turning point" of the film. He then successfully overcomes this major obstacle (or doesn't -- if it's a "sad ending").

There. That's all there is to it. There can be variations on this, but they still adhere to the above outline. You can have more than one protagonist. Or more than one goal (a "secondary goal" or a "subplot"). You can have an antagonist, who is basically another "challenge" for the protagonist in reaching his goal. You can have a "romantic interest" character who can be a "secondary goal" herself/himself, or be a support in reaching the main goal.

Those elements above are "necessary" in a film. What I mean by this is that the quality of a movie is not always determined by the elements above. However, without the elements above the movie will be almost guaranteed to be bad. So you can consider them as the "hanger" or "skeleton" on which you put the interesting components of the movie: the gorgeous visuals, the interesting characters, the funny dialogs, the sexy scenes, the romantic scenes, the heart-pounding action scenes, the scary moments, the great music, etc.

Now the reason I'm telling you all of this is simply as a prelude to telling you one interesting thing that I discovered today. I was watching some old DVDs but then my mind wandered, and I started thinking about old films and TV series that I've seen before. I wondered why I liked certain films and disliked others. For some films the answer was obvious, the story was bad, the visuals was not exciting, it was to slow-paced, etc.

Then I thought about "Starman", the TV series. This was a science fiction series, a genre that I loved. So why didn't I enjoy it that much? It has all the elements, and it had a strong antagonist as well. So what was the reason for my dislike? (Actually I didn't dislike, but I didn't like it as much as I should have).

After more thought I finally figured it out: it's the central character. I didn't like the protagonist. But what was the reason? I thought it was reasonably acted. After thinking about this some more, I realized that the reason was quite simple: the protagonist was too nice. He was a good guy. This made the whole thing uninteresting. You see, you can always count on this guy to do the right thing, so everything becomes predictable, and boring. So I come to the conclusion that this is one thing that is not stressed enough in books on how to write screenplays: you have to give the protagonist some bad characteristics. He has to be selfish to a degree, or even worse than that. Otherwise it would just be too boring. All the interesting films always had heroes that are half-bad. Look at Pulp Fiction, those are all bad people. Look at Goodfellas. Let me be clear, what I mean by "bad characteristic" here is not a certain weakness, for example physical weakness or imperfection. Not at the all. Those things will only make people symphatize with the character more. What I mean by "bad" is to make sure that the main character is not a nice guy. He has to be a bad-ass. He has to DO bad things. He cannot be bland. But it's not enough to make him just witty, or charming, or funny. He has to be BAD. I think the "starman" character was also funny and charming and after a while you can't stand it anymore. You have to make him mean. The guy who can do things because of greed or lust. This will make a better movie. Why? I guess the common reason is that the viewers can symphatize more with the character, because no one is perfect. But I think there are elements in there of the "nice guys are boring" syndrome. People want a measure of excitement and unpredictability in their life. Being "cool" is almost the exact opposite of being "nice".

Film review: Pixar's Ratatouille

I saw Ratatouille yesterday at The Cathay near Dhoby Ghaut MRT. This is my favorite place to see movies, because of the quality of the cinemas. A lot of buzz has been generated about Ratatouille and Rottentomatoes.com shows that more than 90% of the movie critics there gave this film a favorable review.

Personally, I've been very intrigued by this film ever since the first trailer came out more than a year ago. I know it's been more than a year, because I remember seeing the trailer in Jakarta, before I moved to Singapore. The first time I saw that trailer, I thought "Wow, what a great concept. This looks like it's going to be a great movie."

My younger brother had a different reaction to the trailer. He didn't like the concept of a rat being a cook. It just doesn't seem right. I never understood his objection until much later when I read a review somewhere that pointed out that the rats in this film looked unsettlingly similar to real rats. These rats do not look like Mickey Mouse. Therefore some people will be turned-off, and may not be able to relate to the rat-protagonist.

Anyway, all of these thoughts were there before I saw the film. So, was the film good? Yes, it was very good. At the end of the movie, some people in the audience actually applauded. I don't remember anyone applauding a movie outside of film festivals (in film festivals an applause is sort of expected; it would be almost impolite NOT to applaud). The movie was very funny and very touching. It was obvious that the audience was involved every step of the way, laughing at the funny parts and choking at the sad parts. Everyone was rooting for the main characters (Remy the rat-cook and Linguini the garbage-boy-turned-cook). The "ickyness" factor that my brother was worried about was not there at all, in my opinion; there was nothing repulsive about these rats.

You can't go wrong with this movie. It is now one of the my top five favorite animated films of all time (the other four being "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Toy Story", and "Lion King").

At the start of the film there was charming short animated film "Lifted" and a trailer for the next Pixar movie, a robot story titled "Wall-E" (set for release in summer of 2008), which looks like it's going to be another monster hit.

So, go see it this weekend if you have time; you won't be disappointed.

Sunday afternoon in the Esplanade

It's Sunday afternoon, 4:45 PM. I'm sitting at a window-facing table in the Esplanade Library. I can see the bay and the Merlion in the distance, in front of a row of tall office buildings. It was raining before but now the rain has stopped, leaving the wall of windows full of water droplets. I'm writing on my new MacBook laptop which I bought from the NUS shop as a student, but for no appreciable discount.

The sky is still dark from the rain and it's a bit cold, perhaps also from the rain. I just bought a ticket to see a "Duyen Dang Vietnam, 18th Charming Vietnam Gala", which will play in the concert hall in about 30 minutes. The girl at the ticket box told me that this is a combination of a music and dance show with a Vietnam theme. Besides the laptop sits a book titled "Your Movie Sucks" by Roger Ebert. I'm not sure I'll get a chance to read it, since the show will begin soon, and I don't think I want to borrow the book. I'll probably browse it after finishing this blog.

The atmosphere is good, the view is nice, and I'm feeling OK, if slightly drowsy. I'm picturing this blog to come out more as a place where I review recently seen movies and shows. I recently saw "Rush Hour 3". This is one of those movies that didn't deserve its extremely low rating in Rottentomatoes. OK, it's not a masterpiece, but it is somewhat enjoyable. Before that I saw "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes" and that was terrible. It was probably the most boring movie I've ever seen, though not the worst. That distinction goes to either "White Chicks" or "National Lampoon's Gold Digger", or the Indonesian film "Bad Wolves".

OK, I'm packing up and seeing the show now, will check in later.

Why is it so hard to change?

I have noticed that people really don't change. Even when they have habits that are completely boneheaded, and realize it, they still don't change. You can look at someone and wonder: man, this guy is really annoying, lazy, rude, (insert other negative aspect), why the hell doesn't he try to change?

The issue is not whether or not they realize what they're doing is wrong. It is just that it's simply damn hard to change. But then you look at yourself and you realize that it's exactly the same for you. And I'm not talking about major personality overhauls here, but just minor things that you tell yourself you want to do but never get around to doing. For example, you may resolve that you want to go to the gym more often. Now this is very simple, it's no big deal, and you really have no good reason NOT to do it. But for some reason you just don't do it. To gather up the motivation to start doing it takes a mighty effort on your part. Why is that? Why is this such a big deal? I think the human brain is wired in such a way that any change in routine, however small, takes a lot of effort and conscious decision. Maybe this is because the brain naturally takes the conservative position of "don't change it if it's working". Obviously, you've been alive and doing reasonably well so far, so please don't do anything different. Strangely enough, this applies to doing things that are indisputably GOOD for you. Such things as a better job offer, or other similar opportunities for change. If there is ANY element of risk at all, people tend to gravitate towards maintaining the status quo. I know countless self-motivational books have probably been written about this, but I still think it's a strange fact of life.

I have thought about this a bit more, and concluded that for life to be enjoyable you have to keep yourself in a perpetual state of uncertainty of thought. What this means is that you are ALWAYS open to doing anything, and have absolutely no hang-ups about anything. This will make things a lot easier I think, compared to the alternative, which is trying to motivate yourself again every time something new comes along, which is just TOO HARD. Better not to form any set opinions or habits. And anyway, I've found that very few activities are not enjoyable, if you do it wholeheartedly. So I'm going to start trying to reach a state of mind where I'm always open to doing anything, damn the consequences.

Lost

I just turned a certain age last week. It doesn't feel like anything special though. I dont feel especially mature either.... On impulse I've started this blog, after seeing my friend Andreati's blog... it just seems interesting... OK, that's it for now, this is my first day..

Cheers,

Mr. Lost in a Mysterious Universe