ORBzine - Zombies & Superheroes Movie Reviews
Black Sheep (2006)
A genetics lab is conducting illegal experiments.
A sample ends up contaminating local residents, and a bloodbath ensues.
The difference between this and other films?
It is set in New Zealand, where sheep outnumber humans,
and the infected (fast zombies) are the sheep!
Despite the subject matter, this is not a straight-out comedy. It is quite gruesome, more in the vein of the early works of Peter Jackson - gorey lo-budget horror-comedy flicks.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Milwalkee nurse Ana (
Sarah Polley
) and husband Justin Louis (
Missing
) wake up to discover their cosy suburb under attack from bloodthirsty monsters - their own neighbours.
Ana teams up with cop Ving Rhames ( Mission Impossible ), Jake Weber ( American Gothic, Medium ) and Meki Pfeifer ( ), and they lock themselves in the local shopping mall. Other survivors turn up, including Matt Frewer ( Max Headroom, Psi Factor ) and Lindy Booth .
Newcomer Drew Snyder directed this remake of George A Romero 's masterpiece. It has been updated, and not just in terms of the budget. The diseased (they are never referred to as Zombies) are fast-moving, like in 28 Days Later . Ken Foree, star of the original film, plays a TV evangelist who says the immortal line When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth . Tom Savini ( From Dusk Til Dawn ) is the sheriff, who tells the TV audience shoot'em in the head!
I am Legend (2007)
Dr Robert Neville (Will Smith -
Men in Black
) spends his days driving through the deserted streets of Manhatten.
His only companions are a dog and an assault rifle.
In his dreams, we see how human civilisation crumbled and fell.
Three years previously, Dr Crippen ( Emma Thompson ) developed a virus that could cure cancer. Unfortunately, just like the Mimic cockroaches it all turned out badly. The virus turns people into albino cannibals ...
Like the Charlton Heston film The Omega Man , this is based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Unfortunately, this version of the vampires is far inferior to the others'. The dark-seekers, as someone names them, are like biological versions of the androids in I, Robot . They are inhuman - their CGI faces have limited expressions, and their superhuman leaps and bounds make the film seem unrealistic.
Neville conducts scientific experiments to find a cure. He is under ever-increasing threat from the dark-seekers. Although he thinks they are mindless animals, they actually show primative intelligence. They set traps, tame infected animals and show evidence of social bonding and a leadership hierarchy. How much better this film would have been if they had been the frighteningly intelligent villains of the original!
Planet Terror (2007)
Robert Rodriguez
delivers the first half of the Deathproof experience.
This is a wonderful parody of action movies,
jam-packed with celebrity cameos.
Rose McGowan is an erotic dancer whose leg is ripped off by zomboid soldiers who have been contaminated with a nerve gas. Luckily, she gets taken to hospital.
Doctor Marley Shelton gets caught by her husband, who discovers she had an affair with Fergie (the Black-Eyed Peas one, not the former Duchess!).
The star-studded cast of townsfolk are besieged by contaminated zombie people. The survivors flee, and end up facing the zomboid soldiers led by Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis ( Fifth Element ).
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Shaun (Simon Pegg -
Dr Who (2005)
) and his best mate (Nick Frost -
Hyperspace
) are a couple of English lads.
Unfortunately, their neighbourhood is taken over by the living dead
and they have to defend themselves from an army of zombies.
Shaun must lead a small band of survivors, including Bill Nighy (
POTC 2 and 3
) and Dermot Morgan (
Black Books
) to safety in the local pub.
This has got to be one of the best horror-comedies ever. The horror elements are gruesome, but it is so OTT that you just cannot help laughing. And the subtlety of many jokes makes the film work on more than one level. Director Edgar Wallace worked with Pegg and Frost on their TV show Spaced.
28 ... Later Franchise
28 Days Later (2002)
A British comedy actor is wandering around in a white coat.
Obviously something hilarious is about to happen.
Some stereotypical Animal Libbers free the infected apes,
and mayhem ensues.
The mediocre 1980s straight-to-video effort
Watchers
(and its dire sequel) did this so much better!
Cilian Murphy ( Batman Begins ) wakes up alone in a deserted hospital. He wanders around London at 4AM, after the pubs shut and before the morning rush hour. However, a newspaper tells him that this is not the only reason there is nobody about!
Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland ( Sunshine ) did not want to use slow, shuffling zombies. Instead The Infected are fast sprinters, like athletes.
Murphy teams up with other survivors, including Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson ( A.I. ).
Finally they reach sanctuary with a military unit commanded by Christopher Eccleston ( Dr Who (2005) ).
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Danny Boyle
and Cillian Murphy were busy working on
Sunshine
when this was made, but Boyle still managed to supply the teaser sequence.
Robert Carlisle (
The World Is Not Enough
) and
Catherine McCormack
(skanky and dim-witted) are hiding with a handful of other survivors.
However, the Infected are on the prowl ...
Six months after the country was overcome with the infection, all the zombies are dead. The US military (led by Idris Elba - The Reaping ) moves in, securing the Isle of Dogs in central London. They allow the surviving British citizens, those who were on holiday abroad, to return. By strange coincidence, the protagonists (two teenagers) discover their dad (Robert Carlisle) is the caretaker.
The US military plan is not enforced properly - in fact, the whole military aspect is very poor. As the inevitable happens, a handful of survivors try to find refuge. They include Hawkeye the sniper ( Avengers Assemble ), Medical officer Rose Byrne (an Aussie, playing an American) and chopper pilot Harold Perrineau ( Lost ). Byrne's personal mission is to save the teenage boy. By an incredibly stranger coincidence he is immune to the virus, and his blood thus contains the counteragent ...
Carlisle is great, the best thing about the film. He goes from fear to grief to insanity, and his presence dominates the film even when he is not on-screen.
Resident Evil Franchise
Resident Evil (2002)
Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) wakes up with amnesia.
She gets co-opted to join a team of commandoes, including Colin Salmon (
The World is Not Enough
) and
Michelle Rodriguez
. They enter a secret underground bunker.
Unfortunately, the bunker is filled with zombies ...
and a self-destruct has been activated.
This is first in a never-ending series based on a highly successful video-game franchise. It is the best of the bunch by far, which is damning by faint praise, but is quite watchable in its own right. It was released around the same time as John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars , which has a similar theme: gun-toting Last Girl leads hi-tech commandoes against an army of zombies. However, this is clearly the better of the two films.
Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse (2004)
Alexander Witt
drops us into a somewhat predictable sequel
which takes up where the previous film left off. Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) wakes up from her coma to discover that the Umbrella Corporation has opened the Vault.
Racoon city is now overrun with zombies!
The city is sealed off, about to be nuked.
A motley band of survivors try to escape.
Alice teams up with local SWAT types Oded Fehr ( The Mummy ), Jill Valentine ( Sienna Guillory ), and annoying reporter Sandrine Holt . They must find a scientist's daughter - an amazing coincidence that the most useful person is nearby. Luckily Milla is superpowered, like she was in Fifth Element !
Although the city is overrun with zombies, the real villains are the Umbrella Corporation. Naturally, this means that our so-called heroes end up killing far more healthy humans than actual zombies! No wonder the world portrayed in the third film in the series is so damn bleak!
Resident Evil 3: Extinction (2007)
Five years after the end of the previous film, and the civilised world has fallen apart.
The infection has covered most of the world, with isolated pockets of survivors searching for supplies.
Australian director
Russell Mulcahy
gives us post-Apocalyptic tale reminiscent of
Mad Max 2: Road Warrior
. Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) is biking alone across the deserts of Utah
(actually, this was filmed in Mexico, but it is the same difference).
She runs into some scavengers, including Jason Stackhouse (
Tru Blood
). Nearby, Claire Redfield (
Ali Larter
) and Oded Fehr (
The Mummy
) command a convoy of survivors in humvees,
a school-bus and a fuel tanker (with mounted flame-thrower) ...
The Umbrella Corporation still exists, in secret bases around the world. Mad scientist Iain Glenn ( Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ) has an underground lab, and claims he can build a counteragent against the virus. Not unlike the classic zombie film Day of the Dead . However, he needs Alice's DNA. Instead of politely requesting a blood sample, he sends his minions - including something he made himself ... Fast Zombies!
Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008)
This is a motion capture cartoon.
It works because the characters are lifelike enough they can almost pass for human,
and yet they still blend seamlessly with the special effects.
The story is set in an alternate timeline, where the Racoon city disaster was contained and the collapse of civilisation was averted. Claire Redfield arrives in an airport which is quickly taken over by zombies. Instead of doing the usual action heroine stuff that Alice would do, she has a friend's child to look after.
In the second act, Claire heads to the local HQ of Big Pharma to investigate what the scientists are up to. It turns out that after the T Virus, the next big bio-weapon is the G virus. The scientists are working on a vaccine for it. Most of the action is set in the HQ building, as it is torn apart by unbelievable monsters.
Resident Evil 4: Afterlife (2010)
Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) has an army of clones, all with her super-human skills.
she could easily carve out a sanctuary for the survivors of the human race.
Instead, she wastes her army by throwing them against the defences of another human enclave
- the evil Umbrella Corporation.
She also loses her superpowers,
so at least there will be some sense of jeopardy when she slaughters unkillable foes.
Once she has wasted every advantage she ever had, Alice goes to look for the friends she made in the previous film. At the coordinates mentioned in the radio broadcast all she discovers is a graveyard of abandoned vehicles. A lot of survivors made their way to the coast of Alaska, but now they are nowhere to be found.
Alice and Claire Redfield ( Ali Larter ) take a small plane - presumably there is infinite fuel - and follows the coast south all the way to California. Finally, in the ruins of Los Angeles, they end up trapped in with a small group of human survivors. The back-stabbing Burke character is Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy). Wentworth Miller ( Dinotopia ) is locked in solitary confinement, incapable of staging a Prison Break.
Resident Evil: Damnation (2012)
While the other movies in the franchise are live-action,
this is a CGI animation effort.
Its main selling point is the fact that
it introduces a couple of characters who turned up in
Resident Evil 5: Retribution (2012)
, the live-action movie that came out the same year.
Resident Evil 5: Retribution (2012)
Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) is captured by the Umbrella Corp,
and imprisoned in an underwater base.
She escapes with the help of an old enemy.
They are pursued by Jill Valentine (brainwashed by Umbrella Corp)
and clones of the team from the first
Resident Evil
film - Colin Salmon and
Michelle Rodriguez
!
This film was released in 3-D, but it does not really add anything. Like everything in the film, it is just a case of Style over Substance. The plot is very formulaic and episodic, it is blatantly derived from a video game. The only good thing about it is the reappearance of Michelle Rodriguez !
Resident Evil 6: The Final Chapter (2016)
The previous film ended on a high note.
Alice (
Milla Jovovich
) had teamed up with an awesome selection of sidekicks,
including the recurring villain Albert Wesker,
to save the White House and the remains of the human race.
Now we start in the aftermath of the battle.
The awesome array of supporting characters are gone, presumably killed off-screen.
Alice is alone, and in search of a new mission.
The Red Queen, the insane AI built by the Umbrella Corporation, contacts her and delivers some exposition. There are just over four thousand humans left. This is a tenth of the number of survivors in Battlestar Galactica . Alice helps the zombies by killing every man she meets. Seriously, she is responsible for more on-screen deaths than the zombies are. No wonder human extinction is so close.
Alice and her crew, including Claire Redfield ( Ali Larter ) and the ubiquitous Ruby Rose , must penetrate the original Umbrella bunker under Racoon City. There is a cure for the T-Virus there ... courtesy of mad scientist Iain Glenn ( Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ).
Superheroes
Batman of the Future: Return of the Joker (2000)
It is the future in Gotham City.
Bruce Wayne has retired, and his protege has taken over Batman duties.
The Joker (Mark Hamill -
Star Wars
) is back in business again, backed up by acrobatic twins Delia and Deirdre (
Melissa Joan Hart
).
Barbara Gordon ( Angie Harmon ) has taken her dad's job as Police Commissioner. Lauren Tom and Rachael Leigh Cook also pop up.
The Joker is long dead. However, there is now a first-class copycat on the loose. Can Batman catch this Joker?
This was written by Paul Dini, who was also responsible for many of the Ewoks and Droids cartoons .
Catwoman (2004)
Patience (
Halle Berry
) is a graphic designer working for cosmetics magnates
Sharon Stone
and Lambert Wilson (
Don Quixote, Catwoman
). Unfortunately she discovers that scientist Peter Wingard (
Highlander: The Series
) is covering up a problem with the new face-cream product.
Then she falls foul of security goon Michael Massee (
The Crow
) ...
Patience is brought back to life by a magic cat, which endows her with superhuman powers of cat-like-ness. This might seem slightly similar to Catwoman's origins in Batman Returns , but that is about all it owes to the original character. And since this owes nothing to the original character, there are no other comic-based superheroes or villains. This makes for a very uneven film - the villains are white-collar crooks, backed by a couple of grey-suited security goons.
Just to make things more exciting, Catwoman is being investigated by Police Detective Benjamin Bratt ( Demolition Man ). By strange coincidence, he is also Patience's Boyfriend! And while on a date, they have to duplicate the fair-ground ride rescue from Beverly Hills Cop 3. Seriously!
The best thing about this feeble effort is the Catwoman costume, designed to make the most of Halle's assets (it's feminine and empowering). Other than that, the film is just a wasted opportunity.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
The Fantastic Four are still suffering the stress of the celebrity lifestyle.
The Thing actually has a (blind) girlfriend.
Despite being superheroes, the Four have to use public transport.
Reed Richards decides to build a flying car.
A mysterious alien, the Silver Surfer (Laurence Fishburne - Event Horizon ), starts flying around the planet. He zaps Human Torch (Chris Evans - Sunshine ) with cosmic energy that allows him to swop powers with the others. This allows for the necessary humourous scene with Jessica Alba .
Doktor Doom is back in his home country. Unfortunately he is still mostly made of metal. He offers to help defeat the Silver Surfer, to save the world. But can he be trusted? And can the indestructible alien be stopped?
Director Tim Story has sworn he will never have a giant robot in any of his films. Therefore Galactus, the Silver Surfer's world-devouring master, is shown here as an enormous cloud ...
Ghost Rider Franchise
Ghost Rider (2007)
A daredevil motorcycle rider is dying.
His son makes a deal with Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda -
The Tempest
) - his soul for the old man's life.
Of course, things are never as easy as they seem ...
A couple of years later and the young boy has grown up to be Nicholas Cage ( Face Off ), the greatest motorcycle daredevil ever. His ex-girlfriend has become sexy journalist Eva Mendes , who arrives to interview him.
Mephistopheles has a son, who wants to take over Hell. Four powerful demons start strolling around California, swishing their trenchcoats and generally looking tough. Mephistopheles transforms Cage into a flaming skull-faced superhero, and sends him after the demons. Lots of CGI SPFX ensues.
Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
Our anti-hero, Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage -
Face Off
) has dumped
Eva Mendes
and fled the country. He is in hiding in Eastern Europe.
Unlikely religious crusader Idris Elba (
28 Weeks Later
) recruits him to save a young boy (and his gun-toting supermodel mother).
Elba claims he can restore Blaze's soul, and end his possession by the Ghost Rider demon.
The villains are humans, so they should not be much trouble for the soul-eating demon. Luckily for dramatic tension the bad guys are illegal arms dealers with 40mm grenades and 80mm anti-tank rockets. They have been hired by Satan's avatar Rourke (Ciaran Hinds - Lara Croft: Cradle of Life ), whose powers are limited on Earth. The result ...
This is not badged as one of the Marvel/Avengers continuity films, though the comic does take place in the Marvel Universe. One could be mistaken for thinking that this is an outcast, semi-official film made legal only through contract trickery. But not only was this exec-produced by Marvel Comics supremos Avi Arad and Stan Lee, it was co-written by David S Goyer ( Blade ). So it is another example of a pseudo-Marvel film.
Spider-Man Franchise
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Sam Raimi
delivers an excellent sequel.
Dr Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina - Species ) is the world's greatest scientist. Financed by the Orborne Corporation and promoted by Peter Parker, he is going to make a great scientific breakthrough. However, things go badly wrong ...
Mary Jane ( Kirsten Dunst ) is going to marry Jonah Jameson's son. She is also the obvious target for any supervillains who want to lure Spider-Man into a deadly trap.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Sam Raimi
delivers a rushed job of a sequel.
There are a couple of plot threads which are loosely held together.
The story is riddled with unbelievable coincidences.
Somehow, Gwen Stacey (
Bryce Dallas Howard
) manages to pop up in virtually every plot thread!
Peter Parker has a rival, Topher Grace ( Predators ). The Green Goblin is back as well - yes, we get closure for the last couple of films.
A perp escapes from jail and visits his wife, Theresa Russell . By strange coincidence, the jailbreaker is suspected of being the man who killed Peter Parker's uncle. By yet another coincidence, the perp accidentally becomes a supervillain ... Sandman!
Peter is infected with an alien symbiote. He thus gets a new costume - the nifty black one from the late 1980s! Unfortunately it has an unpleasant side-effect. Like Anakin Skywalker, Peter slides towards the Dark Side of his nature ...
As in both previous movies, the climax involves Kirsten Dunst being the damsel in distress. But the fact there are multiple supervillains in a huge tag-team match almost makes it worthwhile!
Amazing Spider-Man, The (2012)
This is a reboot of the
Spider-Man Franchise.
The last version was only ten years ago, and this has to cover the same ground.
As a result, it spends most of its time differentiating itself from the
Sam Raimi
Version.
Strangely, it is not part of the current Marvel Franchise
so it is unlikely there will be a crossover in
Avengers 2.
Worse, if Marvel want to integrate their own version they will have to do the THIRD reboot this century!
Peter Parker is raised by Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen - Dead Zone ) and Aunt May ( Sally Field ), who give him the same All-American Values that the Kents gave Kal-El. But he wants to connect with his father's legacy. His father was a scientist in cross-species genetics, so Peter meets his partner - Dr Chuck Connors (Rhys Ifans - Hannibal Rising ). They manage to solve cross-species genetics, but this is not a good thing as it turns out. Peter is accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider, and Dr Connors accidentally turns himself into a giant lizard.
Peter's High School crush is Gwen Stacey ( Emma Stone ). By strange coincidence Gwen is Head Intern at the bio-lab. Also, her dad is NYPD captain Dennis Leary ( Demolition Man ), who hates Spider-Man the vigilante.
One of the best things about this film is the variety of cameos by recognisable faces. Tia Texada has a shirtless cameo (with no proper dialogue - this film would not pass the Bechdel test). The CGI SPFX may be more modern than in the 2002 film, but this was intended for 3-D so it does not actually look any better. Also of note, there is an after-credits sequence setting up the sequel, reminiscent of Marvel Avengers Assemble .
Amazing Spider-Man 2, The (2014)
The story starts with an explanation of what happened to Peter Parker's parents.
It involved going on the run from OsCorp,
although why they borrowed the company Learjet is not explained.
Flash forward a decade and a half, and OsCorp is STILL possibly the WORST Corporation in the world. The previous film's super-villain, and BOTH this film's ones, were created by OsCorp science gone wrong. Rent-a-villain Colm Feore ( Chronicles of Riddick ) is in charge of things, so villainy is only to be expected. But why do they drive a truck-load of plutonium into the middle of NYC and then allow a Russian Gangster (Paul Giamatti - Shoot 'Em Up ) to steal it?
Peter Parker is conflicted about his relationship with Gwen Stacey ( Emma Stone ). He is haunted by visions of her father, to whom he promised that he would leave Gwen for her own sake. The scenes between these two, so painful for those comic-book fans who know why Peter ends up with Mary-Jane Watson, are the real core of the film. Once Parker puts on the Spidey suit, he becomes a (very well-done) CGI cartoon.
Max (Jamie Foxx - Stealth ) is a well-meaning electrical engineer working for - wait for it - OsCorp! He is stressed by his job, and by accidentally getting turned into a human battery, so he goes Django on their asses. Foxx may be handicapped by the burden of TWO clichéd characters, plus a freaky blue-skinned make-up job that makes him look like Young Palpatine, but he still manages to deliver the kind of excellent performance that can be expected from an Oscar-winner.
Punisher Franchise
The Punisher (1990)
The opening credits tell us a lot about this film,
and they do not fill one with hope about it.
The movie was shot on the cheap in Australia,
and as the credits pass over a montage of photographs depicting a 1970s crime wave
we learn it was inspired by the Marvel comic-book character.
Stan Lee is credited as an Executive Consultant, whatever that means,
He probably even got some money out of it.
But this is just a shoot-em-up, not part of any shared Marvel universe.
The opening scene gives us all the exposition we need. Yes, we skip the whole origin story movie and just have it all explained in a news broadcast. Police Officer Frank Castle (Dolph Lundgren - Masters Of The Universe ) lost his family in a mafia-related bombing five years ago, and is believed dead. Meanwhile, someone has killed a hundred and twenty-five Mob associates. A believable body-count, perhaps - one kill every other week in a city of millions.
The Punisher (2004)
Technically the Punisher is a costumed hero (like
Batman and
James Bond
), rather than a superhero. However,
he lives in the Marvel Universe so he should be included with the Fantastic Four!
This is a fresh start that ignores the Dolph Lundgren film, The Punisher (1990) . If anything, it resembles the Schwartzenegger flick Raw Deal.
Frank Castle (Thomas Jane - Deep Blue Sea ) is a DEA Agent whose Sting goes wrong. One of the dead suspects is the son of Miami's top gangster, Howard Saint (John Travolta - Face/Off ). Saint and his wife ( Laura Harring ) send their surviving son (RL husband of Amy Acker ) to kill Castle and his entire family!
Castle survives and seeks refuge in a cheap apartment, where he befriends waitress Rebecca Romjin-Stamos . This bit was taken from the most recent comic version of the Punisher, written by Garth Ennis . His arch-villain The Russian makes an eye-catching appearance in a very memorable scene.
Punisher: War Zone (2009)
Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson -
Rome
) is the Punisher, a psychopathic ex-Special Forces veteran on a kill-crazy rampage.
He targets the local Mafia godfather, but creates a couple of new problems.
Firstly, one of the crooks survives - albeit hideously disfigured.
The crook renames himself Jigsaw, and goes after the Punisher for vengeance.
Along for the ride is his brother, Loony Bin Jim
(Doug Hutchison - last seen as a loony Bin inmate in
The Green Mile
).
The second problem is that one of the crooks who Castle murders is an undercover Fed. Castle feels he owes the man's widow ( Julie Benz , who is in EVERYTHING these days). He also has to dodge the Fed's partner (Colin Salmon - Resident Evil ).
This is not a straight sequel to the previous film. That was just a straightforward revenge thriller, while this owes a far greater debt to the original comics. The violence is completely OTT, and characters like Jigsaw and Detective Martin Soap are lifted directly from the source material.