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phlod79
Reviews
Heroes (2006)
mind over matter? style over substance more like!
The fatal flaw of Heroes, particularly in the recent series, is its inability to stick to one central idea, or at least one of any value. When we reach the end of an increasingly convoluted plot line every episode, we are treated with a Jerry Springer style moral-of-the-story, but you can't help the feeling that it is more an attempt to hold the whole thing together in the mind of the maker, to give a meta narrative or deeper purpose to the whole mess. Which is problematic, because the maker clearly doesn't have any higher vision or godlike qualities, just look at the randomised way in which characters are given abilities one moment only to have them stripped the next. I know this is a fictional genre but guys, it has to be believable. And given what we already know or understand of the human race, heroes is just ridiculous and above all frustrating, not because of the strung out episodic formula but simply because unlike life it is all a lot of oysters and no pearl.
Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008)
What kind of name is Leon S. Kennedy anyway?
This film was clearly conceived almost entirely by people who watch too many fan movies. Which would be fine except that they have stitched together a truly horrific monster of a film from the bits and pieces they found here and there. Almost every scene and every piece of dialogue has been borrowed from somewhere else. A little bit of Aliens here ('the ship will destruct in five minutes' anybody?) and a little bit of every other cult action/horror/sci-fi film there gives us lines such as: "you're too pathetic to kill" and "If you don't try to save one life, you'll never save any!" well, duh...
It is a very good-looking movie, which has clearly been painstakingly made by true fans of the Resident Evil franchise. I just wish they'd spent as much time and effort on the plot and the script. Oh, and the characters' names. "I'm Leon S. Kennedy" sounds heroic and American because, people, it sounds like John F. Kennedy. Although I'm pretty sure that the former US president would never have introduced himself using the middle initial, it just sounds ridiculous. Handsome guy, awful character, very much like the film.