Razaaq Adoti
English-born actor Razaaq Adoti first wanted to work behind the camera, but soon found that his true calling was to act in front of it. He played Nathan Detroit in the National Youth and Music Theatre...
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Resident Evil: Retribution Review
September 14, 2012 10:05am EST"Sorry if my snoring bothered you." Those are not the first words I'd expect out of the mouth of someone who got up on a Friday morning to catch the 10:30 AM screening of a new movie but that is more or less what the fellow who'd been sitting behind me said as I passed him on my way out. I'd heard him snoring over the constant rat-a-tat-tat of bullets and butt-kicking being doled out by Milla Jovovich et al in this latest iteration of the never-ending Resident Evil series (this time in IMAX 3D) but I figured maybe I was hearing things. Nope he was asleep. I used to play Resident Evil on my ancient PlayStation when it first came out. It scared the crap out of me. I enjoyed the first two movies — hey they included the skinless zombie dogs! — but I lost interest soon after that. How many times can you make the zombie apocalypse exciting? How many different skintight outfits can Jovovich wear while killing grotesque creatures who shoot evil grasping tentacles out of their mouths? Why should we care about all the blood and guts when we know the people we're supposed to be emotionally invested in will never die? We don't. Try as he might there are only so many ways for writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson to give the Resident Evil series fresh new layers for each new movie. The Umbrella Corporation is the big bad. They were playing with biological weapons and somehow there was an accident that let one of the viruses loose... and boom you've got a zombie apocalypse on your hands. Our heroine is Alice played by Milla Jovovich and there is a rotating cast of characters who help her fight the good fight against the hordes of brain-eaters and whatever is left of the Umbrella Corporation that's now after her. There are some parallels to the video game series but Paul W.S. Anderson (a gamer himself) has taken lots of liberties with the basic plot over the years. While Anderson's flashy style is especially suited to these types of movies there's not enough plot to make it work. We don't go to video game movies for plot of course but there has to be something to hold onto; otherwise why would we care if our protagonist were in danger? Anderson tries some neat tricks to snap us back to attention like bringing back characters that were killed in previous movies and throwing in a cloning subplot that calls into question some of the characters' true identities but it's still hard to get worked up about anything onscreen. However it ultimately sidesteps any deeper ideas that might take our attention away from all the guns. And there are so many guns and explosions and elegant butt-kickings doled out by Milla and her pals (or former pals in the case of Michelle Rodriguez's character Rain) that they blend together. It is especially difficult to work up any interest in the story because it's a franchise and no matter how many times the stars or director might say they're not that interested in doing another everyone is just waiting to see how much money this will make before deciding to go forward. There is no question how franchise movies will end; there will be no derring-do on the part of the writer or director to actually kill off a beloved character permanently. At one point it seemed like Anderson was going to pull the old "And then she woke up!" trick which would have been bold both because it's such a hackneyed idea that it would make writing professors' heads explode all over the world but also because it would have required Anderson to play in a different universe and expand his repertoire a bit. Alas like Alice and Anderson himself we just can't seem to escape this rabbit hole.
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Haven Review
September 22, 2006 6:19am ESTHaven is one of those purposely nonlinear films in which multiple stories cross at "random" times and locations only to wind up being inextricably connected to each other in the end (thanks a lot Quentin Tarantino). In this case the two main arcs belong to shady businessman Carl (Bill Paxton) and his teenage daughter Pippa (Agnes Bruckner) and to laid-back fisherman Shy (Bloom) and his secret love Andrea (Zoe Saldana). Carl and Pippa flee to Grand Cayman from Miami when the Feds find out about his deal with cynical British businessman Allen (Stephen Dillane) while Shy has spent his whole life on the island getting by just fine until he falls for the boss's daughter and incurs her family's wrath. Their stories collide on one hot fateful night when tensions stretch to their breaking point and it becomes virtually impossible to tell who's out to get who--and why. Most of the film's characters are fairly one-dimensional but you can't really blame the cast--defiant Daddy's girl slick island shyster gun-toting gangsta crooked businessman poor fisherman with a heart of gold and so on. But because of that--and the fact few of the actors end up getting significant screen time due to the movie's fractured storytelling style--not many of the performances are all that memorable. Anthony Mackie (who also impressed in Half Nelson) does a good job seething with rage and resentment as Andrea's older brother Hammer and Saldana has her moments as a good girl brought down by heartbreak but everyone else seems to be in it more for the island location than the chance to stretch their acting muscles. As for Bloom he continues to prove that while he's good at "earnest" and "vulnerable " while "complex" and "tough" elude him. Making a movie like this work is no small challenge but unfortunately it's one that director Frank E. Flowers doesn't rise to meet. He juggles the interconnected stories awkwardly--after following Carl and Pippa for the first 30 minutes or so the film abruptly abandons them to switch over to Shy with no real explanation on where the other two have gone. It's only much later that the timeline and plot start to become clear but by then the characters' motivations and double-crosses have gotten so muddled that it's difficult to care all that much about how everything fits together. It's one thing to make an audience think a little. Memento and The Usual Suspects are fine examples of head-scratchers that reward you for giving your brain cells a workout. But it's quite another to confuse them with unnecessarily complicated details that don't end up making a difference in the end.
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Doom Review
October 21, 2005 2:05pm ESTIn the near-future a portal to Mars is discovered and the remains of a civilization are discovered. The UAC corporation sets up shop with an archaeological dig and find all sorts of cool artifacts. Then things go horribly horribly wrong in a very bloody and violent way. So a squad of bad-ass soldiers led by The Rock are sent in to clean things up. The mission is complicated by Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) a scientist who is trying to salvage as much research data as she can without getting killed. The mutant zombies--or whatever they are--give the guys a run for their money. But with a seemingly unending supply of ammo the mutant-zombies are ultimately defeated. Big surprise. First this isn't a film that requires much acting. With guns being fired every time someone turns a corner there isn't much call for character revelations and tender moments. At least that's how it must have been pitched to The Rock because he only covers two emotions in this film: gruff or screaming rage. He pulls it off but the screaming gets a bit tedious. Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings and The Bourne Supremacy) who plays John Grimm aka Reaper is serviceable in a role that requires him to have at least a little depth more than any of the soldiers. As plucky Samantha Grimm John’s sister (yeah nice twist there) Pike (Die Another Day) runs frets and figures things out pretty quickly thank goodness. She and Urban have a nice chemistry as well. Too bad they played brother and sister. Andrzej Bartkowiak (Romeo Must Die Exit Wounds) has given the fans of the popular game an action-packed film--but it just isn't enough for those of us who really love Doom. The world of the game and the world of the movie are slightly different and that's OK--up to a point. There's always a problem when you want to have it both ways. But unlike its cousin Resident Evil Doom is monster deficient compared to the game--until that is the final sequence. Shot mostly in a first-person perspective like the game it unfortunately feels tacked on. The story’s logic is ignored for the sake of trailer footage. There is a slight twist at the end which helps but it just isn’t as satisfying as it could have been.
