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Blade 2 & Resident Evil

Comics and video games can't get any respect. Despite the fact that both mediums possess their share of ravenous fans, they are still regarded in some circles as "kid stuff." While that may be true for pop-culture circa 1978, much has changed in the past couple of decades. In the last few years, the videogame industry alone has padded its coffers with a gross revenues surpassing that of the long-time heavyweight champ, Hollywood. A revenue source that substantial can't subsist solely on busted piggy banks and stolen milk money.

Granted, films based on comics and video games have had their fair share of fits and starts. For every Crow there's a Batman Forever. For every Super Mario Brother...okay, so video games haven't fared quite as well. But in the end, the almighty dollar reigns supreme in La-La Land. Comics and video games, with their high-concept plots perfect for spectacular set-pieces, backed by a loyal fan base eager to part with their hard-earned Benjamins, have provided ample job opportunities for the Lara Crofts and X-Men of the world.

Blade II and Resident Evil are the latest genre works to get the high-gloss Hollywood treatment. With a keen eye to the current demographic base of comic and video game consumers, both films play to an adult audience. Both films also travel similar cinematic terrain, albeit with divergent results.

First up, Blade II. The original Blade, released in 1998, was a surprise to many - it seemed to have several knocks against it from the outset. The character came from a second-tier Marvel comic. Wesley Snipes had been churning out a series of cookie-cutter action flicks and was edging precariously close to the lucrative but not as prestigious career abyss known as Direct-to-Video. The most recent comic book movie, Spawn, also released by New Line Cinema, favored style over any substance whatsoever and quickly expired at the box office. So it was with much trepidation that I went to see the first film. Following Blade's hypnotic opening sequence, which staged a blood-soaked kung-fu battle royale amidst thumping techno music at a slaughterhouse rave, I was hooked. Once I had retrieved my jaw from the faux-butter lacquered floor and coaxed my heartbeat to a less life-threatening 60 beats per minute, I decided that as long as Wesley Snipes was of sound mind and body, Blade was the only role he should play. His Willy Loman could wait.

Blade II arrives, after a relatively long hiatus, carrying a whole new set of baggage. Not only does it need to reach the high-water mark set by its predecessor, it is also haunted by the specter of The Matrix, X-Men and other subsequent comic-book-style films that the original Blade paved the way for.

Tearing a page from James Cameron's manifesto, "How to Build a Better Sequel in 62 Script Treatments or Less," Blade II clearly takes its inspiration from the Alien series, specifically Cameron's superior 1986 sequel, Aliens. Much like that film, Blade now leads a heavily armed group of soldiers in a desperate battle for survival against an even greater threat.

As the film begins, Snipe's Blade, a human-vampire cross-breed who has launched a lonely war against the shadowy Vampire Nation, arrives in Prague to hunt down his human mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). The mysterious fate of Whistler, who was last seen offing himself in the original, provides some nice early tension, even if the character's inclusion in the film seems awfully contrived. Regardless, this is a film in which half-vampires join with full-vampires to stave off the sinister advances of
super-vampires called Reapers, so some suspension of disbelief is required.

Blade soon finds himself reluctantly paired with the Blood Pack, an elite group of vampire mercenaries who have trained for years to eliminate Blade himself. Their new mission is to hunt down and destroy the Reapers. Led by the mysterious Nomak (Luke Goss), the Reapers represent the next step on the vampiric evolutionary ladder (for perspective, Count Chocula would be somewhere in the vicinity of Cro-Magnon man). The Reapers have taken to feasting on vampires and, as Blade quickly realizes, once that gravy train is derailed they will move on to his beloved human cattle. And that is essentially the story that serves as the frame work for mucho macho posturing and a whole lotta ass kicking.

As producer, Snipes made some very interesting moves in pre-production. First he commissioned David Goyer, the first film's scribe and the goth guru behind such other genre highlights as The Crow and Dark City. Snipes then moved to secure a director. In Guillermo del Toro he found a kindred spirit to the material. Del Toro, who cut his teeth on the ghoulish creepshows Cronos and Mimic, as well as the more haunting The Devil's Backbone, brings an innate understanding of horror and the things that creep us out. While the first film was essentially a "balls to the wall" action film dressed in horror trappings, the sequel goes for something more visceral and gooses the audience with some nicely placed thrills and well-earned tension.

And it is precisely this point that presents a dilemma in reviewing the finished product. General rules of sequel-manufacturing (it is a product after all) call for the filmmakers to provide more of what worked best and less of what did not. While not a complete departure, Blade II does mine darker depths, which can be firmly attributed to del Toro, while Goyer's screenplay boosts the superhero and comic book origins to greater amplitude than was present in the predecessor. The result is a movie which sometimes doesn't realize what it truly wants to be. There are images that are as ghoulish as any mainstream horror film has given us and action sequences that provide blistering blitzkrieg assaults on the senses using the latest and greatest kung-fu choreography. While these action scenes utilize computer effects to free their participants from those pesky earthbound strains of gravity, del Toro bucks the trend by being less dependent on the "wire-fu" that has become so prevalent in modern action films (and, post-Charlie's Angels, has descended almost entirely into the realm of parody). While at times (with the pre-requisite rapid fire edits and shifting camera angles) it seems as if Michael Bay snuck into the editing room and touched up the fight sequences, del Toro is wise to let his camera linger on some of the more gothic imagery. Above all, del Toro is a director who knows how to set a mood, and when this film isn't shocking your eyes and ears with its bone-shattering battles, it successfully paints a sense of dread.

Is Blade II as good as the original? Honestly, I'm not sure. I keep waffling on that one. Without a doubt, it is more technically proficient (a larger budget and greater studio confidence and backing will do that for you). Then again, the original had the element of surprise on its side. It is certainly a worthy follow-up to the original and adds some greater depth to the series mythos, but Blade II doesn't necessarily tread new ground. Regardless, it is ferociously entertaining as all hell.

Which is not the case with Resident Evil. Once again, video games just don't quite make the grade.

I have read numerous articles over the past year aiming to ascertain the weakness inherent in bringing a computer game scenario and its characters to the big screen. Most recently, films such as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Tomb Raider have tried with mixed success. The latter scored well at the box office before doing a quick fade, while the former couldn't have been a bigger failure, despite its groundbreaking animation (unjustly overlooked in the new Academy Award Animated Film category).

Personally, I suspect Tomb Raider fell victim to the same sloppy script discipline that governs so many other Hollywood action extravaganzas that manage to score the coveted green light. Final Fantasy, on the other hand, is derived from a popular roleplaying game notorious for its care in character and story development. For it to have worked, it needed a 5-year television series commitment. A 90-minute film just couldn't do the concept justice.

Like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil falls prey to general malaise on behalf of the director and screenwriter. It has a good scope of vision, stays relatively true to its source material, and features a cast of actors who, while mostly unknowns, are game for the rigors the film puts them through.

As with Blade II, Resident Evil clearly draws its inspiration from Aliens, with Milla Jovovich playing an amnesiac who is pressed into service alongside a team of heavily-armed soldiers to hunt down a grave threat to humanity. Also like Blade II, Resident Evil co-opts the cramped crawlspaces and dank, dark corridors of Aliens fame, made all the more ominous for evil things to lurch, skitter, leap and bite from.

While Resident Evil does diverge slightly from the plot of the Playstation video game series, offering an alternate but just as compelling back story for the action, there are still enough familiar elements to appeal to fanboys.

The major problem with the film is that it just feels lazy. The film looks great, the story plays out on some impressive-looking sets, but that's all there is - just some attractive window-dressing with no substance underneath. The film boils down to an extended chase scene, where our intrepid heroes infiltrate a locked-down secret installation, discover the horrific experiments that have been conducted in the name of so-called "Science!", and then spend the rest of the movie high-tailing it to safety. Of course, zombies figure into the mix, but other than the nagging fear they would break out into a well choreographed CGI-enhanced Moonwalk, I wasn't too scared.

As mentioned above, Resident Evil cribs a great deal from Aliens. While Blade II affectionately pays homage to that film, Resident Evil shamelessly steals from it. Take the token tough chick for example. Michelle Rodriguez (Girlfight, The Fast and the Furious) plays the take no prisoners Latina grunt who is as quick with a sneer as she is with a semi-automatic. Her first line in the film, aimed at one of her tough-as-nails compadres is "Blow Me!", a line which was coincidentally highlighted to great comedic relief by the buff and gruff Latina grunt Chavez in Aliens. The line and the character delivering it is ripped verbatim, with no obvious wink and a nod. Rather, it plays as pure desperation and blatant plagiarism.

Resident Evil has one fantastic scene which, unfortunately, comes at the very end. This final sequence, and specifically the last shot of the film, remind me of John Carpenter in his heyday. It eschews a happy ending for something more apocalyptic and hints at a potentially greater sequel to come. An undertaking which, fortunately for the producers, should require precious little additional effort beyond that spent here.u

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