"Resident Evil: Retribution" & "The Tall Man"

Resident Evil: Retribution

Rated R
1 Hour 57 Minutes

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 27%
My Grade: D+

I've only seen the first film and now the two most recent ones in the series. So I have missed a few. However, it doesn't matter, because this movie gives you a wonderful little "Previously on Resident Evil" montage right at the beginning to catch us all up. I liked the first movie, it was fun, it had a point and a decent story that blended with great action. Now we are up to number 5 and I think they have gone as far as they can with trying to develop more story so they just gave up on that aspect. Literally nothing major happens in this movie. The only thing it's about is our main character Alice trying to escape the Umbrella Corporations main hub. Any other significant plot points are a distant, faded memory. It's all about getting from point A to point B as loud and gory as you can. And that's all this movie is...just one very long action sequence with a lot of bullets and blood. And maybe that's all you want in this kind of movie, and that's great! Usually I don't mind action movies with no plot or real story as long as the action is makes up for it. There are a lot of cool action scenes in this movie, but after a while it just becomes so over used and tiresome. If this movie didn't have a single slow mo shot of a bullet traveling or someones face being punched, I think the movie would clock in at 25 minutes. But alas, 75% of this movie is in slow motion, or at least it seemed that way. Way to much of that going on. Nothing new surfaced here in terms of bad ass or action. It was just same old same old. And a lot of it was cool, like I said...just I got bored of it. And half of this cast I think were reading their lines from cue cards or something, they were terrible. But in the end, we get a cliffhanger that will inevitably lead to yet another chapter in the Resident Evil saga. And I'm sure I will be there to see it. Yay.

The Tall Man

Rated R
1 Hour 40 Minutes

Starring: Jessica Biel and Jodelle Ferland

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 45% (limited amount of reviews)
My Grade: B+

I didn't see a preview for this movie ahead of time, and I didn't know what it was about before I watched it. I just saw the poster, and watched it. Looking at the poster by the way, I got nervous chills that this was a sequel to the movie ATM. But thank our lucky stars it was not. I guess it was supposed to be a horror movie, but if that's what you are looking for, look again. It's about a small town in Washington state where kids are constantly going missing and never returning and the townspeople create the legend of The Tall Man who lurks in the woods and snatches their kids. Maybe this movie came out based off the recent popularity of the "Slender Man". But there really is no connection as the Slender Man was all made up. Anyway, I was very shocked by how much I enjoyed this film. About half way through it takes a turn that I honestly was not expecting to happen. Then you spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. At one point I was nervous it was going to take the "High Tension" route which would have made this movie suck by the way...but it didn't. Phew! The movie was taught and tightly wound in a good way, ha. It kicked into high gear about 10 minutes in and never lets up. It's intense and full of little twists and turns. It actually had some depth to it, which is not something we expect from a thriller like this. It's a movie that will make you think. I picked up on a few similarities between this movie and the brilliant movie Gone Baby Gone. Now this film isn't on the same level, of course, but it still sends a jolt to our hearts and and makes us wonder. Yet I feel the clear right answer to the questions this film poses is more apparent than the one given to us in Gone Baby Gone. But it's there nonetheless. The movie is well written, and paced beautifully. It doesn't drag on to much and doesn't go to far in depth, because after all this is still a "horror" thriller. Jessica Biel gives probably her best work here, she was the biggest surprise of all. This is not an instant classic or a tour de force motion picture of the ages, but I thought it was a nice little surprise. I liked it a lot.