Half in the Bag Episode 38: Resident Evil series Part 1

half in the bag gray and mica frogs customer hmm lightning-fast VCR repair this is Mike no it's not can you fix it please don't go hello hello so were there any customers while I was gone no but a homeless man did come in and asked to use the floor as a bathroom no when you just let him I've been doing that since we opened oh I've been using the bathroom there's one in the back no you saw it before you know we have to do something that isn't a horrible waste of time yeah I've got it let's go watch the new Resident Evil movie J that's a terrible idea let's go watch all the Resident Evil movies President Obama were on the case hello and welcome to half in the bag I'm J and I'm Mike and in preparation for seeing the latest Resident Evil movie we recently locked ourselves in a tiny room and did a marathon straight through all four of the original movies that's right and we invited our friend rich Evans to join us at the beginning of the 21st century the umbrella corporation had become the largest commercial entity in the United States doesn't at Walmart and this is true this isn't [ __ ] we actually did watch the movie straight through we started what like six seven ish and went to one or two in the morning yeah one after the other one after the other and it should be noted that neither of us have seen any of the Resident Evil films I saw the first one Oh a long time ago way to make a liar out of me I'd seen that one but that was it and I didn't remember anything about it and INRI watching it it reminded me why I had forgotten everything about it what's up [ __ ] alright the droplet somehow sam raimi movie well going into our marathon what was your your first thoughts when the first movie started and we were little ways along and you realized you had another 25 hours to go of Resident Evil movies um sure terror um I I've always heard that the Resident Evil movies were bad yeah um and I always thought well I understand what the movies are what you get out of it is action and violence and blood and zombies and sexy ladies kicking zombies and zombie dogs and all that stuff and the plot isn't that important they're they're hard movies to really get upset about like they're kind of lame but I wasn't angry while watching them I wasn't irritated and so we get to baby the fourth one which we'll talk about that was the first one but the rest of them are just I was actually surprised at how tame they were like the first and second one specifically it felt like it should have been a pg-13 movie but there was a little couple little bits of nudity but there's next to no gore when people got shot there was no blood bursts or anything they're incredibly lame is there anything less cool than score that's supposed to sound like rock music it always sounds lame yeah but it's very cheap today I guess target audience for this should be you know thirteen-year-old kids or something but it's r-rated so they can't get in so it's amazing that the series has lasted as long as it has yeah yeah well the first one was rated R but it didn't seem like an R movie no no and and the movies are they are what they are but they're also kind of frustrating because with just a little bit more effort you know you could write a better story there are so many creative elements to deal with like zombie apocalypse the world ending all these laboratories and all these different things but each movie is always Alice teams up with a handful of mercenary soldier types and they have to get from point A to point B and then it even sets it up like a video game and the first one there's literally maps showing here's where you are here is where you need to get to and it's sure the series is based on video games but it doesn't have to be that methodical and that at least I didn't go to the extremes that movables House of the Dead did where they literally inter splice footage of the video game into the movie oh it's amazing that sounds horrible even though I had this this vast creative environment to work with it always managed to pull everything back into the constraints of the premise of the first movie yeah well and the fourth one yeah we'll get to the fourth one but the frustrating part is that they're all focused on the Alice character which isn't really a character yeah there's absolutely nothing tourgee does not grow you don't learn anything about her throughout the entire series of movies right and it doesn't help that it's played by milla jovovich you can't tell anything from her facial expression I like her as an actress generally but I'm getting nothing here just looking around yeah she doesn't look confused she's not concerned yes scared or anything it's just blank stares yeah we were watching the first movie and we were talking about the fact that you could cut to any random close-up of her in that movie and you would absolutely have no idea what emotion she was supposed to be conveying do you think there was a moment when Paul WS Anderson was looking at the monitor while they're shooting the first movie and you can see these close-ups of Milla Jovovich with absolutely no emotion whatsoever and he said that's the moment I fell in love with him that's when I knew Oh Milla Mike what are her strengths what are her weaknesses what are her faults what is she vulnerable to oh she just kicks in slow motion yeah well they made her have amnesia in the first one so they didn't have to do that so they don't have to bother wasting time with characterization well you learn a little bit throughout the series of movies about her sort of backstory with the Umbrella Corporation but that still doesn't tell you about her as a person right yeah yeah you know she worked previously worked for the Umbrella Corporation and then now she doesn't know yeah once there goes they're riding the motorcycle in the motorcycle both Widow speaking of the umbrella corporation yes going into the second movie what what more do we learn about the umbrella corporation man film that they're evil yes yes this is the most single-minded conglomerates in movie history the umbrella corporation where you're constantly wandering throughout the series of movies what is their goal what do they actually try to accomplish and it basically is just to be evil yeah apparently they have unlimited resources even after the economies of the world of collapse yeah even after there there's no life left on the planet even after they destroy the world because of their bio weapons research that accidentally destroys the world they they're still like we must stop the world and we must kill more people they're still doing like comical bad guys yeah but I guess if there was an applicable movie to insert comical villains it would be the Resident Evil series what rather than evil in space are watching oh why is the umbilical doing here the world is gone I still doing even research she'll have the power to maintain all these elaborate facilities yeah so the throughout the first at least three movies we discovered that they kind of up the ante with each one as far as the location of it like the first one underground facility you're all going to die down here we started the second one walled off city what is the bigger picture here like raccoon cities in the United States place yes scimitar shows oh there's no like once it's they shut off a city and declare martial law by a corporation it's just not a problem apparently and then your third one you get to the whole planet has been destroyed and turned into a desert so it's like what do you what do you do after that movies great so far this is so far this is the most entertaining one that's cuz I even introduced some dumb plot yet yeah well well they say that the whole planet is a desert that somehow the t-virus somehow people turning into zombies caused all the oceans to dry out well the t-virus did something to the environment but even though the whole planets a desert they still happen to be riding around in the desert of the US yeah for some reason there's driving around like California areas that were conveniently deserts already yeah yeah when the third ones start cuz the first movie was pretty lame kind of boring it's just like okay I was it wasn't painful to sit through you're just like all right I get it whatever second one kind of more the same and then the third one actually was a little more visually interesting yeah I notice that right off the bat yeah it looks better it looks like a higher production quality yeah and the zombie makeup look and the zombie makeup was great it was like classic Tom Savini Day of the Dead era zombie makeup yeah oddly enough the movie itself rips off quite a bit from Day of the Dead to not just the look at the zombies but there's the the fenced off entrance to the underground facility and there's even a helicopter there mmm-hmm there's a scene that is exactly like the seed with bulb from day the dead where I have the phone say hello to your aunt Alicia right that's right Bob say hello come on Kathy can you break will you say hello to your aunt Alicia this is amazing he knows what it is are you saying that Paul WS Anderson is the Carlos Mencia of the filmmaking community oh ah leash this becomes something that we noticed throughout the course of the next few movies - it starts to become more and more appearance the ripping off of other movies yeah it's almost like they started with a blank slate yeah the video game and you know - zombies never really seem that important in the movies and that's it but like in Romero zombie movies obviously it's the focal point like their underground lab and Day of the Dead it's like okay they're trying to figure out a way to domesticate the zombies um well it's all three those original Romero movies are about how does the world deal with yeah this this thing and and these movies the the Resident Evil movies they have zombies in them but at the same time it's it's movies about trying to defeat or fight this umbrella corporation evil corporation yeah and at the same time the evil corporations goals are sort of bland and vague and nonsensical yeah so there is no specific focus of what each movie is about it's not a survivor movie you know because the characters are disposable Alice's character is boring and flat yeah so it's not really like okay well the bad guys motivations are vague there's zombies everywhere but we really like all these characters because we don't we don't know anything about any of them yeah oh my favorite characters back he had so many great moments in the last movie it's that guy it's that guy I recognize him so yeah the third movie a little bit better than the first two a little more interesting visually mMmmm everyone's saw the desert one that one got boring the point of these movies everyone just dies yeah maybe you care about them in the first place but well I think they're just supposed to be action movies but the action in all of them is so boring the opening of the third one to me was more exciting than anything that happened in the first two movies as a whole and it looked neat I liked the idea of the the post-apocalypse desert landscape Mad Max with zombies sure and then at the end of the movie we discover that there is a clone army of Alice's be bringing a few of my friends oh my god if there's like 10 Milla Jovovich is in the next movie that would be amazing can't wait that idea sounded fun the idea of this this army of Milla's so what so what happened when we watch the fourth one there there was a couple meals yeah here we go they delivered with what they promised yeah it looks horrible but the delivery the helicopter down this is slot this is schlock yeah yeah the opening of that forth movies is actually a lot of fun like I was entertained while watching that yeah it was using the creative elements of the series to its advantage yeah and and in silliness it went right over that line where it was good yeah and you're like okay this is fun um but then then they had to rush it rush through it yeah yeah it's the opening scene and then the the the sequence ends with all the clones being killed oh no they're all gonna get blowed up they're ghosts all that's all that's gonna be it for the clones isn't yeah yeah and Milla Jovovich getting injected with something that takes away her superpowers so the first part of the movie was just to tie up all the loose ends just so third yeah it's quite would have everything last handful of survivors didn't come to safety about the water sparingly yeah it was to tie up the lesson it was you it's just to get rid of everything that they introduced even the superpowers yeah Wow these movies are really great examples of writing yourself out of a hole yeah with just logic that makes no sense well it's like I was saying after the v movie um it's like a like when little kids would make up a game and they would play it on the playground but then the one kid would keep changing the rules yeah make sure that he won it's like wait no what that you can do this no it's the lowest common denominator of storytelling yeah well by the time we got to the fourth one that's that was the one that killed us that that ruined our spirits rich this is bullsh yes it is yes it is this is like a bad Flash Gordon TV series you're making plans is this a green screen do they have the green screen a shower scene like like I don't think it's I think it just looks that way because of whatever the type of 3d cameras they really start hiring wait wait where's the water what happened the water shut off no no don't but it didn't shut off in the shot it shut off on the edit no swag what that's just a continuity error blatant no no there's no way that was done intentionally but it doesn't make any sense on what you still hear it where is it coming from you can still hear it is it why don't what dude what Dad so the fourth movie by the time we got to that one we'd set the three movies was a couple fun moments but mostly sorted boring get to the fourth one and this story is completely nonsensical and and does then you can't follow anyone as far as what their motivation is for where they're trying to get to so we were really really wore down by this point yeah in the series we just fresh human DNA I could redress the balance but when do your crew end in June and then Alice gets on the boat and she confronts the evil matrix looking villain and then that's when the movie broke us yeah it literally snapped our brains in half this is borderline experimental I don't think I don't think you understand that the whole movie was leading up to the going back zoo continued in part 2

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,824,324

Keywords: redlettermedia, red, letter, media, half, in, the, bag, mike, stoklasa, jay, bauman, rich, evans, mr., plinkett, resident, evil, milla, jovovich, afterlife, retribution

Id: caKcJ9Jllfc

Length: 21min 40sec (1300 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2012