The Film Freak! September

By Adam Miller

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D

It’s normally 3 strikes you’re out, but Milla Jovovich is returning for the 4th Resident Evil disaster (double entendre fully intended), Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D… surely every zombie is going through an afterlife!  Director W.S. Anderson is keen to point out that the movie was shot using the same technology that made Avatar so beautiful, in fact, that’s the biggest draw the film has; call me a cynic (and no other c-words please), but any movie that has to mention which camera they used in the trailer will surely suck... Citizen Kane, filmed in deep focus!!!  They are also attempting to make fanboys wet their pants with excitement however, as an entourage of Resi-characters crop up, including Chris and Clair Redfield, Jill Valentine, Luther West and the despicable Albert Wesker. If having bits of brain and gore fly at you, in glorious 3D, is your idea of fun, you’ll love this…if not, banging your head against a brick wall should kill an equal number of brain cells.

A-Team

A movie that promises to be equally ridiculous but endlessly more entertaining is Joe Carnahan’s version of the iconic A-Team.  Any man worth his salt should already know that the original A-Team were a group of Vietnam war veterans who escaped from a military stockade, after being imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit.  They survived as soldiers of fortune, helping blind store owners, or native Americans… usually by blowing shit up.  The film hasn’t really altered the winning formulae much, except that they are now Iraq vets, and they have been wrongly accused of stealing money plates capable of printing $100 bills.  Although the characters have had a facelift (Liam Neeson plays Hannibal, Bradley Cooper is Face, Quinton Rampage Jackson takes Mr.T’s old role, BA Baracus and District 9 legend, Sharlto Copley is Mad Murdock), the team’s dynamics are almost identical.  With set pieces as ridiculous as parachuting tanks taking out jets, how can you doubt how awesome this will be?!

Frozen

Sneaking just below the big-budget radar is Frozen, a grim little horror about 3 snow-lovers who find themselves stranded on a ski-lift as night settles in.  They have to either risk their necks in order to escape, or stay put and await rescue OR a chilly death.  Director Adam Green made the slash-horror Hatchet back in 06, which some found a little cheesy/disgusting, but I kinda liked it.  Although this film may start off as a teenage-frolic, Green sticks to more subtle scares and the lift is ever-looming.  When the sleet finally hits the fan, the film really shows how desperate the situation is, and any audience jibes of “If I were on that lift I would just…” are soon put to rest; you jump, you die.  You wait, you die.  You try and forge helicopter blades from your skis…well maybe!  Although it may not be able to compete with torture-porn films like Saw for grossness, the tension is handled brilliantly and the creepy bits are really creepy… you have been warned.

Beck

There are two literary adaptations on the Japanese front this month, one is based on a funny manga, the other a Crime-Thriller novel.  Movie number 1 is Beck, which is based on Harold Sakuishi’s manga.  It is a light hearted comedy that concerns itself with youth and music… 2 things I can no longer relate to.  Beck is a High School band named after a cute dog, and the manga follows the stories of both the band and it’s individual members.  It is a much loved manga and one that many think can’t be transferred to the big screen without losing it’s appeal.  But director, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, is well broken-in for the world of manga-movie adaptations, having directed the 20th Century Boys trilogy…hardly a film franchise than can boast a subtlety for humor, but in retaining the manga’s style, Tsutsumi did a stand up job.  It will be a decent movie, but most will still prefer the print version.

Akunin

The last film this month is Akunin (Villain), directed by Sang-il Lee and based on the twisted and (slightly) unsettling novel by Shuichi Yoshida.  Akunin follows the story of Yuichi, an everyday working class-man who is accused of killing a female insurance agent.  Yuichi goes underground and meets up with the enticing Mitsuyo, a Bonnie and Clyde partnership inevitably sparks up and the two of them go on the run whilst falling in love with each other.  It may not break any new ground for originality, but the pacing is good, the narrative interesting and the characters rounded enough to earn some believability (and therefore, sympathy).  This is neither a sloppy romance or a gross-out murder mystery, and although some will be able to read the story-line as if there were footnotes instead of subtitles, there are enough twists and turns to keep the average film-fan guessing.

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