I’ve recently played Resident Evil 6 for the 1st time after playing Resident Evil 4 (an absolute masterpiece) & Resident 5 (a pretty good game). I was already aware of the hate this game got over the years. But after experiencing it, it’s only bad in an artificial way. Like yeah, it’s nothing like the classic games and it’s too much in the action category.
Otherwise, as someone who loves action games, it’s a pretty fun game. Especially in Mercenaries Mode, where it’s fun to mow down body-horror themed enemies. As a Resident Evil game, it’s pretty bad. But…as an action third person shooter with splatter punks, it’s quite well executed
(2002) Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Jeremy Irons
Wasn’t a big hit when it came out and it’ll never be as iconic as the George Pal Time Machine from the 60’s. But the 2003 adaptation has the coolest looking time machine to come around in a while (at the time it was the most expensive prop ever built, might still be but I’m not sure.)
Critics shit on it for not having the cataclysmic event that destroys humanity be global warming. While I’m all for talking about global warming I can kind of understand why they didn’t use that and why they didn’t reuse the 60’s disaster of nuclear war.
spoiler
In the 2002 film humans destroy the moon while nuking underground living spaces to build a low gravity retirement community for the elderly.
But to be fair to the writers their choice to destroying humanity was original, kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke about the elderly crisis we’re currently entering into and the plan is in fact an idea that has been discussed before.
Aside from that the film is pretty solid. In the book by HG Wells and the 60’s film the Time Traveller (doesn’t even have a name) has zero motivation aside from achieving a new scientific advancement. Thats cool and all but modern audiences, having had several successful time travel stories since Wells time, do need a better eureka moment than that. The 2002 film provides a good and believable motivation.
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His girlfriend is killed while he proposes to her. His first time traveling event is going back in time to save her, only to have fate killed her in some other cruel way. So instead of repeating the event he goes forward in hopes someone in the future will figure out how he can change the past.
The film also features a believable super-distant future where the human species splits, just like in the original stories. Samantha Mumba is a member of the tribe of humans that live above ground and are technologically ignorant, thought not exactly like the child-like race we see in the 60’s version. They do maintain that there are no old people and why that is.
spoiler
Morlocks are eating them up before they get old and the meat gets all tough and stringy.
Samantha Mumba did a great job in her role and while I don’t normally discuss a persons race the fact her father was Zambian and her mother Irish did kind of lean into what a future race of people could look like. She has a distinct look which played to the role.
Orlando Jones makes a couple appearances as a sort of AI librarian. It’s nice to see him in the odd movie role.
Jeremy Irons is the head morlock, the race of humans that stayed underground, and doesn’t disappoint, although his character is more of a cameo.
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He is the one who eventually explains that the issue with changing the past is a temporal paradox since Guy Pierce wouldn’t have built the machine if his lover hadn’t die, thus she must die because without the machine he couldn’t have went back to save her. Then to save his new future girlfriend the 2 fight to the death and he uses the time machine to sort of blow up all the other morlocks.
The film also had a good soundtrack and special effects that features the classic “years passing in seconds” stuff that was iconic from the 60’s film.
But ultimately the film is mostly forgotten to audiences.
This is one of my favorite popcorn flicks. The first half of the movie is amazing (up to the part where the moon gets destroyed), but I feel like they could have done more to make the second half more entertaining. I don’t know what, but it feels like it’s missing something. I also like how the film predicted the concept of LLMs and giving them an avatar, even though they predicted it happening about decade too soon IIRC.
The core problem is the source material is also boring. Aside from the motivation issues and the fact Wells never even bothers to name the Time Traveller, the whole plot is a bit slow. Sure, the morlocks eating people is creepy but it never manages to get to the horror level like how Jurassic Park or Jaws was able to achieve. You never really felt like they were going to sneak up behind you and slash you or tear you limb from limb.
The changes they made to the story helped: named the character, moved him to New York instead of London, gave him a deep motivation, even the morlocks had a more organized system that was more believable (hunted the Eloi and were controlled telepathically by Jeremy Irons.)
Maybe having more Irons in it would’ve helped but with the plot elements they had to work with it would’ve been tricky. The good thing is they didn’t drag it out, 90 minutes is the proper length. Nowadays they’d try to make it 2 1/2 and it’d be bogged down.
I still like watching the time traveling sequence.
That and the machine itself are the real star of the film. I came across some behind the scenes of the build years ago and it was impressive. The wood deck is all steel painted to look like wood. Since the spinning bits weighed a ton, acrylic and brass, they had to have it be secure. Even the geared computer (forget what it’s called… a baggage computer?) worked. Really impressive prop that doesn’t get enough love. Makes the Pal time machine look like a joke.
I was a young man when this came out and I certainly remember Samantha Mumba’s performance.
Yeah she was fun. Shame she didn’t do more stuff. I’d probably blow up my time machine and live with her instead of going back too.