Yeah, the banner isn’t what RoboCop will look like, sorry. I actually rather like the banner one.
But we do know what Robocop will look like now and yeah, it’s pretty bad. The original film had a great deal of originality to its look, from the Robocop suit to the ED-209. Granted these needed to be updated for a remake of the film but I still think that what we have seen so far has been done before. ED-209 looks like a small Transformer and the RoboCop suit, well… I will go over what I think of the new suit and do some comparisons after you look at the images below for yourselves.
First off let’s have a quick look at the suit from a non-comparison stand point. The suit looks a little clunky in the second picture which should really be better in 21st century film robots. Then there is the fact that it doesn’t look like he is a cyborg. Granted there is just a man in a suit in filming but I was expecting a half man half machine look at least. The only evidence that might suggest this would be the right hand not being covered by the suit (really! Is that it?).
GI Joe Suits
Now is the comparison part. This suit looks like a combination of at least 5 different suits from film and games in the last 10 years. Why is this a problem? Well, apart from the complete lack of originality this proves it also makes the film start to blend into the fabric of those films rather than stand out as its own. Remember all of those comparisons made between the look of the alien ships in Battleship and the robot aliens of Transformers? People kept saying it’s a total rip off of Transformers, and that’s how it starts. People have seen it before which makes them think they are watching the same film over and over rather than a new film, and can seriously piss ’em off.
Here is a collection of the Grizzly Staff’s reactions to first seeing the new RoboCop suit:
Tim The Film Guy: “haha oh no that’s not right, thought I just saw Batman’s motor bike suit”
Dr. Kronner: “This looks turrible.”
Supascoot: “Motocross mixed with Tron and aspects of the Bat suit do not make a good Robocop.”
CTan: “Did they dig out the GI Joe suit?”
Brucewalken: “I actually laughed when I saw it. It’s hilarious. That film I reviewed, Robowar. The costume the cyborg has in that flick is better than the RoboCop costume! Maybe they have played too much Halo as it looks to me like a biker helmet stuck on a Halo costume painted black. Unimpressed.“
Cheesebadger: “I’m…. Just really gonna keep hope that it’ll work in the movie.”
So basically it’s a collection of all black armored suits in films and games. We’ll have to wait to see more before I, or any of the staff apparently, will be convinced that this is a good look for RoboCop.
After reading all of those Resident Evil: Retribution 3D articles I have written over thelastfewmonths, you should have a good idea of my stance on the movie. I was never a big fan of the franchise, but I would watch it for the lack of a better alternative when it comes to entertainment.
Yep, that’s what I did. Initially, I was pondering about the possibility of watching the movie in 2D. I elected against that option and opted for the 3D version instead. I felt it’s only right for me to review this movie the way it was intended to be watched despite of my general disdain towards the overused gimmick. Rest assured, I did not review the movie in filtered lenses. (You can call it a pun if you’re stretching those lenses all the way to include the Real D ™ glasses.) Just because a movie is in 3D does not mean it’s poorly made. But in the end of the day, I did shell out an extra $4.50 for you gals and guys. (Yes, I did say “gal” first. I’m defying against the patriarchal system. Sue me.)
It wasn’t as long of a stretch as I thought as the glasses are sort of tinted. Call it an intended pun. It’s still a bad one but whatever.
Anyways, here’s a brief summary of Retribution. Basically, Alice (Milla Jovovich), our protagonist, is captured by Umbrella. Now, the once pharmaceutical-company-turned-evil-corporation-which-exists-solely-to-perform-eeeeviiiiilllllllllll-deeds has the technology to clone people and run simulations of the zombie virus spread in a huge ass facility. Yea, it’s revealed pretty early on in the movie so it’s not really a spoiler. In a nutshell, the movie is about Alice getting out of the facility with some help from her pals, new and returning ones alike.
Plot-wise, the movie makes sense because the series no longer makes any sense. By that, I mean if you adopt the RE movies’ insane, illogical thinking, everything makes sense. Two wrongs do make a right. That does not mean the story is by any means good though – not even in a “so bad it’s good” manner. There are major inconsistencies here and there, and some things magically happen without explanation. There is one huge plot twist early on in the movie, but it is presented in a manner that doesn’t feel like a surprise. To be honest here, I have forgotten a good chunk of the movie, partially because of the countless action sequences, and the hotness of Milla Jovovich, Bing Bing Li and Sienna Guillory. Michelle Rodriguez is not bad herself.
[Insert your own sarcastic comment here. I don’t have any.]
When it comes to the characters, they all exist to make Alice look bad ass. None of them, literally, is likable. Ever felt Alice was one-dimensional? That’s not going to change. The story writers tried introducing elements that make her seem multi-layered, but they just failed to work out. It might be Jovovich’s acting; it might be the writing. Either case, I did not walk out of the cinema liking her more. New characters were insanely overhyped. Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) are extremely far off their game counterparts character-wise. As for Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), she is a slightly more faithful re-imagining of the femme fatale, though not by any means a good one. Neither of their origins was elaborated upon, nor was there any form of character development. They are, in short, replaceable.
Boy was he terrible. Anderson actually made Leon hateable. I know “hateable” is not a legit word. Once again, sue my broke ass. I have noting to lose.
Returning characters generally feel unnecessary. Other than Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), they all exist to make Paul W.S. Anderson’s wet dream come true. Some of these returning characters were dead, but managed to spring back to life because of Umbrella’s cloning tech. Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez) and Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) showed up multiple times throughout the movie. Multiple clones of them exist and each duplicate contains a different personality. Yea, any traces of whom they were are nowhere to be found. The movie simply does not need them. Their return doesn’t add anything to the story or characters for that matter, and it doesn’t really make any statements. As for Jill Valentine, she is an antagonist in the movie, under direct control of Umbrella. I have already gone on and on about that ridiculous mind-control device strapped to her chest so I won’t talk about it again here. Anyways, she is one of the more “established” (and I’m using the word lightly) characters here, so at the very least, she adds something to the movie. She makes you sort of care. Well, not really. It was more of a “relatively speaking” statement there.
They don’t have personalities in the first place. Just replace them with generic evil soldier clones.
The visual aspect of Retribution is done well, and I am talking about both the 3D portion of the movie and the female cast. There are scenes which show off the gimmick for the sake of doing so (eg. Firing at the audience), but most of them feel right. Fight scenes are still corny, but you should have known what you’re signing up for at this point. There is a car chase, which is average. Gun fights could be better if the good guys brought the right weapons. Most importantly, as mentioned, the women in the movie are insanely hot. There is one scene which features Milla Jovovich covered by two pieces of cloth, with one on the front and another on the back, leaving the audience with quite a view. Does the costume make sense under those circumstances? No. Is more Milla Jovovich hotness awesome sauce? Yes. Am I complaining? Hell no. Bingbing Li looks good in that Chinese dress as well. Those heels are ridiculous, and I am nitpicking somewhat here, but she’s hot so whatever. (All that talk about defying against the patriarchal system? Wow, I’m a big time hypocrite. Perhaps we should start sexualizing the hell out of men as well.)
Hot damn.
With that said, Paul W.S. Anderson has yet to answer to my biggest complaint for the franchise. The movies have always felt too serious for me to like them. This is no different. It’s trying too hard to be art. It’s trying to be Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy when the original material doesn’t have enough substance for him to pull it off. The movie ends up feeling like a giant Milla Jovovich billboard. Not that there’s anything bad about focusing entirely on one character, it’s just that the movie has too large of a cast for an intimate experience to be possible.
Better luck next time.
Bottom line: If you have watched Resident Evil: Afterlife and actually liked it, Retribution is a souped up, more awesome version of that movie. If you are looking for a decent action flick which includes hot women kicking asses and requires no critical thinking whatsoever, this is also a movie for you. If you are looking for a decent story, avoid at all costs.
Requiem for a Tuesday, literally, has a better storyline than Resident Evil: Retribution. (See what I did there?)
6.3/10
4 of those points went to the ladies in the movie. The rest for 3D being done well enough. [Ed. Note – somehow this equals 3/5 Grizzly’s]
Recently Screen Junkies showed off the new Texas Chainsaw 3D trailer, which works as a direct sequel to the 1974 original, ignoring the previous 6 films.
Let me start off by saying, I’m not the most active gamer. Oh sure, I used to be. I used to be that guy who read 2-3 gaming magazines every month, back when multiple gaming magazines still existed, and charted out game releases on my calendar, eagerly awaiting the new releases of Conker’s Bad Fur Day or Metal Gear Solid 2. In the recent years, I’ve kept getting gaming consoles, but I find myself using them for gaming less and less. I can count on on two hands how many PS3 games I have, and despite having a rather sizable 360 library, I really only play 2 games with any regularity, and they’re both sports games and multiplayer.
Kick faces everyday.
With the way Microsoft and Sony have positioned their systems, gaming consoles aren’t just for games anymore, not by a long shot. So despite my lack of interest in 90% of the actual games being made today, I’m still hotly anticipating the release of any new hardware and the plentiful amounts of wondrous technology it brings to my living room. I even bought the Kinect, not only because I like jumping up and down or inane dancing games, but because I thought the image capturing technology and voice recognition were just plain cool. To this day, I still love being able to command my XBox to pause my movie, merely with my voice. That’s right, I don’t even want to have to move to grab the controller.
Unfortunately, there’s a cruel dichotomy for big fat men who want to move even less but still play games, as the current trend in gaming is standing up and interacting with your game – direct player control through motion sensing and all of that active, almost exercise, balderdash. This theme seems to be continuing, with the little glimpses that have been released by Microsoft, with a project of theirs tentatively codenamed Durango that looks to immerse players ever further into their gaming environment by literally projecting them into the game.
via [GameTyrant]
“The patent describes how the room layout will be scanned and how the images will adjust to take account of wall color or objects like a cylindrical lamp. It also mentions a depth camera (which I’m assuming is the Kinect device) that will adjust the perspective of the images depending on where the user is looking.
The patent reads that in the context of a gaming scenario, the user “may turn around and observe an enemy sneaking up from behind”.
If that sounds strange and vague to you, here are some pictures to illustrate, taken from the incredibly-boring-to-read patent.
It’s all fun and games until the projections come to life and try to murder you.
It maps your room in 3D, and then projects weird mountains and trees in the background, presumably while you’re playing Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s a neat idea in theory, and if it is even half as successful as it is in these drawings (it won’t be), it’d be really fun for hyperactive kids to jump around and pretend they’ve got a snake in their boot or whatever. The rest of us will just get tired of it, like all the other gimmicky motion control/get up and dance games, and just wanna sit back down and beat the crap out of people in UFC. If anything, I want to move less while gaming. Let me hook up nodes to my skull and control that shit with my thoughts, so I don’t even need to move my hands.
Grizzly Bomb 
