Holy schnitzel! yet another reboot!! I guess the main difference here is the fact they have actually tried to reboot a poor movie instead of a decent one. The quite unsurprising, yet still, truly gobsmacking and painful fact is Hollywood just doesn't get it, they just don't ever ever learn! I mean seriously, a child picks up things quicker than Hollywood. They are creating an adaptation of a popular videogame franchise, they know what has happened before, they know what people want, they know about the pitfalls, but somehow...some bloody how...they make all the same mistakes again. I here by present to you my review of 'Resident Evil 6: Agent 47'.
So, there's this single agent bloke, he's a super soldier, assassin, clone, type bloke with all the trimmings you would expect. Speed, strength, agility, intelligence, super reflexes, bigger than average cock...the list goes on. The old bloke who created this project grew a conscience and ran off trying to hide the secret to creating these super soldiers. But guess what, some really evil nasty corporation wants the secret so they can make lots of these guys and conquer the world...or something like that. So the evil corporation goes after the daughter of the old bloke who started all this. At the same time, another mysterious corporation wants both the old bloke and his daughter whacked presumably to stop the secret falling into the wrong hands? They send in agent 47 in to do this, so they obviously control the only super soldier clone going and they wanna keep it that way.
Now to look at this movie you'll see right away its slick, but slick in a predictable way. What I mean by that is...the Resident Evil movie franchise. Everything looks very glossy, very clean, very polished, with lots and lots of hi-tec computer screen readouts, security jiggery-pokery and top secret undercover assassin type net imagery, that all flashes about in front of you trying to impress you (but no monsters...even though, I'm sure they would have loved to). This world put simply, looks fake, plastic, sterile and way too obviously CGI. You can't immerse yourself within this world because it all looks so flippin' fake, I hate to say it but yes at times this movie does look like a videogame cutscene. There are some solid action sequences I won't deny, there are plenty of little snippets that naturally do service the fanboys of the videogame and rightly so. At times I liked what I saw because clearly there was some thought involved and decent choreography is evident, some nice gun fights and some nice fisticuffs, plus the main character (Rupert friend) is actually well performed and looks the part.
The big problem is everything is completely let down by outrageously obvious CGI usage and ridiculously stupid action sequences which are in no way remotely believable. Yes I know this is a videogame adaptation hence you should suspend your disbelief, but that doesn't mean the movie has to be some kind of inane, gravity defying, realism defying CGI mess. Secondly, isn't the original game supposed to be based around stealth, lurking in shadows, taking people out silently...you know, discretion, acting like an actual assassin would. So why in blazes does agent 47 run around raining down carnage on everyone and everything without even pausing to take a piss, or maybe, just maybe, worry about the law, which apparently doesn't exist in this world. I mean, lets look at one very small sequence near the start where agent 47 escapes from the police (the one time we see them). He's in this locked room with guards and some gruff detective, or whatever, asking him questions. The detective puts 47's bigass sniper rifle on the table in front of him and questions him hard, eventually getting pissed off he loads it with one bullet and threatens to maybe shoot. 47 basically thanks him for bringing him his gun and loading it, he then kicks the underneath of the table which somehow causes it to fire whilst lifting it in the air. At the same time 47 raises his cuffed arm to allow the freshly fired bullet to break the chain and voila! he's free. The question is, what if that detective had never loaded the gun? or put the gun on the table? or even brought it in the room? then what?? huh???
Apart from the nonsensical CGI shenanigans there are also many other obvious problems here. For a start the beginning of the pot is basically ripped off from 'The Terminator', its so bloody obvious! That's before it descents into boring, familiar, shiny white, sterile, baddie environments set within futuristic buildings (cough! Resi evil cough!). I also have to mention how none of it makes much sense (come on, you saw this coming surely). 47 changes his clothes a lot, a bloody lot! how does he have the time to do this?? how come everything he changes into looks custom made to fit him?? and most of the time it doesn't even feel relevant, its like they do it just to reference the game. I'm not too up on the videogame I'll be honest, I did play one of them way back, can't recall which, but I don't recall 47 ever speaking much. I realise you might require him to speak a bit but why not take the Mad Max route here, or the Clint Eastwood 'man with no name' route, and not have him speaking much at all. Here he starts like that but eventually becomes like...this regular dude. At first he's this slow moving stalker type (walks everywhere yet always manages to catch up with his prey...eh?) who only mutters, by the end he's this smartass with a sidekick.
Oh and what is the deal with the sidekick? Spolier alert she's an advanced agent too, because of course, and because you have to have a strong female role in everything these days or people lose their minds apparently. So she is better than 47, she is 90, see that means she's better because its a higher number. This lady agent has really heightened senses, which sounds plausible enough...but is it here? In this film she's apparently able to virtually see into the future from what I could make out, she can see exactly what's gonna happen plus she can regain shittonnes of backdated memory just by touching another persons hand like some kind of supernatural power.
Lets not even begin to talk about how utterly useless and inept the baddies are in this, hordes of them armed to the teeth, yet no one can manage a single hit on the good guys, ugh! This genuinely looked quite good from outset, it really looked like they might have nailed it. In some aspects they have, generally visuals are crisp and exciting with nice videogame touches, but its just let down with so much tacky shit and some terrible acting (accept for Friend who wasn't too bad). This should of been a slow moving adult thriller with darkness and gritty realism, instead its just childish CGI packed nonsense, I really thought we had seen the last of movies like this.
4.5/10
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