Sometimes a movie is exactly as advertised and exactly what you want. If you love a good John Carpenter movie and are intrigued by a director’s ambitious attempt to create a worthy homage to Carpenter’s most memorable early work, then Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is for you. With pacing, cinematography, music, and characterizations found in Carpenter’s Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, The Thing, and Escape from New York, writer-director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) delivers more mood than scares, but it’s the perfect beginning to a video game franchise movie series and a fantastic throwback 1980s-style horror romp. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is available on physical media here at Amazon and currently has a $9.99 sale price for digital streaming at Vudu.
Milla Jovovich’s badass superheroine Alice in the Resident Evil franchise, from 2002’s first film through five sequels–Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)–has given us the 21st century version of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner. And speaking of Connor, the trailers for the next chapter of Resident Evil, a prequel called Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, looks a lot like Terminator 3–plus lots of zombies.
Check out the first trailer and a profile on Hannah John-Kamen’s character Jill Valentine, below:
After a year including Sonjaversal and The Invincible Red Sonja and Red Sonja: Black and Whiteand the announcement of Hannah John-Kamen (Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Marvel, Game of Thrones,Tomb Raider) cast as the next live-action movie Sonja, the busy year of Red Sonja continues. With her 50th anniversary arriving in 2023, now we have a new anthology series from Dynamite Entertainment beginning this week. Red Sonja adds a new twist to the re-imagined story of Robert E. Howard’s famous “she-devil with a sword,” as she comes onto a destroyed encampment to find the only survivor a young girl named Sitha. What is the secret behind the strange symbols on her skin?
After Sonjaversal and The Invincible Red Sonjaand the announcement of Hannah John-Kamen (Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Marvel, Game of Thrones,Tomb Raider) cast as the next live-action movie Sonja, the big year of Red Sonja continues. With her 50th anniversary arriving in 2023, now we have a new anthology series from Dynamite Entertainment beginning next week. Red Sonja: Black White Red combines three pairs of well-known writers and artists with a final book published in classic black and white with a touch of red–sometimes for Sonja’s flaming red hair, and just as often for the blood of her enemies.
Is this the year of Red Sonja? Her 50th anniversary arrives in 2023, but we’re already off to a great start. We thought we had something big with January’s launch of Sonjaversal from Dynamite Comics. Just as Hannah John-Kamen (who we love, love, love, love, love)–star of hit franchise films including Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Marvel, Game of Thrones, and Tomb Raider–has now been tapped to take on the role of the She-Devil with a Sword in a Red Sonja reboot movie, comic shops will get you another big Red Sonja fix this week with the premiere of The Invincible Red Sonja. The series reunitesAll Star Western‘sJimmy Palmiotti, co-writing the series with wife/partner Amanda Conner, and artist Moritat. The variant cover options are worthy of this big series debut, including artwork by Frank Cho and several others. It’s wall to wall action, with pirates, mermaids, princesses, and intrigue.
Check out a preview for borg readers, courtesy of Dynamite Comics, of the first issue of The Invincible Red Sonjabelow, along with 48 cover options.
Milla Jovovich’s badass superheroine Alice in the Resident Evil franchise, from 2002’s first film through five sequels–Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)–has given us the 21st century version of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner. The tie-in to the Japanese survival/horror-themed video game Biohazard (renamed for the U.S. market) is a staple in the action movie genre–not only one of the world’s bestselling game series since arriving in 1996, it’s the world’s most successful video game tie-in movie franchise ever. But Alice wasn’t a character in the Capcom Resident Evil games, and 14 years is a long run for any franchise, so it’s finally getting a reboot, and that yet-to-be-titled reboot is coming later this year with a great slate of some of our favorite genre actors. This new film (from Sony Pictures) will be in addition to an eight-part Resident Evil live-action television series and an anime series (titled Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness), both coming to Netflix.
It’s time for borg′s annual look at the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television. This year we selected 25 characters that rose to the top. Again the studios gave us more to cheer about than ever. We’re highlighting the very best from a slate of fantastic heroines, with characteristics to learn from and cheer on. Determined, decisive, loyal, brave, smart, fierce, strong (and, okay, sometimes evil), you’ll find no one here timid or weepy, but all rely on their individual skills to beat the odds and overcome any obstacle that comes their way. Over the years we have expanded the list to include any tough, savvy, gritty character played by a woman, so villains are welcome here, too. Some may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons (literally, figuratively, or both), and some against gun and laser fire. And they all showed what a tough, kick-ass character is about.
In 2018 these characters broke new ground, and unlike last year’s great list, this year’s selections would not have worked as well had the characters been swapped for males. We had a former MI-5 agent, bounty hunters, assassins, doctors, defenders, advanced superhumans, superheroines, warriors, witches, and even a few cyborgs–with a roster evenly split between television and movie characters.
Better yet, here’s something we haven’t said before. Several of our selections this year were played by women over 50.
These are the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2018:
Enfys Nest(Solo: A Star Wars Story). For the first half of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Enfys Nest was the leader of a band of pirates, a character as cool and ruthless as anyone Han Solo ever faced. But once she took off her mask, it became clear how important she was, how significant her mission was–even more so than Han Solo’s own pursuit of mere wealth. She foreshadowed what Han would later find with Leia, an early glimpse at a rogue and scoundrel who actually had some good in him. When they joined forces, it made their characters even better. And she became one of the best warriors in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy. (Disney/Lucasfilm)
Okoye(Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War). Is there any woman warrior as powerful and impressive in a fantasy movie this year as Danai Gurira’s Okoye? We can’t think of any. A smart commander, a brave soldier, a loyal ally. Stalwart, devoted, steadfast, strong physically, intimidating and wise, with a keen unwavering ferocity, she represented the best of Wakanda, and fought bravely to defend the world at the last stand against Thanos. (Disney/Marvel)
Higgins(Magnum PI). Few television characters are as beloved as Jonathan Higgins in the original Magnum, p.i. So it was going to be risky having any actor step into the role John Hillerman made famous. So when the show honored the original character and late actor with such a finely tuned, updated character and actor, we took notice. Perdita Weeks’s Juliet Higgins is everything Robin Masters was–the character we all thought Higgins was in secret. We don’t know whether we’ll learn the truth this time around and what that truth will be, but as an ex-British secret service agent, she’s a James Bond for Thomas Magnum to partner with–literally running alongside the show’s star and fighting and shooting her way as an equal. And the result? Every episode of the first season was full of great action and fun. (CBS) Continue reading →
One more Marvel Studios film is still on its way in 2018, and with the success of Avengers: Infinity War breaking the best weekend opening box office record, moviegoers will be ready to dive back in for more. Ant-Man and The Wasp will take a step back, at least in part, before the events in Infinity War, with Ant-Man Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) on house arrest after damaging the airport as Giant Man during that spectacular action sequence in Captain America: Civil War. Lang was enlisted to help Team Cap by The Falcon (Anthony Mackey) after his run-in with The Falcon in 2015’s Ant-Man. That movie is also where we last saw Michael Douglas’s original Ant-Man, Dr. Hank Pym, and his daughter, Evangeline Lilly’s Hope van Dyne.
The first full trailer (previewed here) gave us a look at Ghost, portrayed by Hannah John-Kamen (Ready Player One, Tomb Raider), but with her mask, and we now see her without the mask in the official movie poster (above), just released. We also now have our first look at Michelle Pfeiffer (Murder on the Orient Express, Wolf, Batman Returns) as Hank Pym’s wife, Dr. Janet van Dyne, the original superheroine who was lost in the Quantum Realm decades ago.
And Marvel Studios just released a second trailer for Ant-Man and The Wasp, and all signs point to another hit for Marvel. We met the characters in the first film and now, origin story behind us, audiences will get to watch them take off. So with no more ado, check out the new trailer (plus the teaser) for Ant-Man and The Wasp:
For a new generation, the new adventure-thriller Tomb Raider may be an entry point into the adventure genre. If you like the concepts in Tomb Raider, you’re likely to love adventure classics like that other “raider,” Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,The Mummy, and Disney’s National Treasure series. Tomb Raider borrows much from these movies, even key sequences that serve as the high points of the film. The film itself? It’s all about that upper-body strength and holding on for dear life. (How many action films feature the hero holding on to the edge of a precipice with one hand anyway?) It’s good, not great, but a fun enough popcorn flick for a late winter release, particularly to see someone the size of Alicia Vikander racing through all the required harrowing action scenes. She leaps, fights, sprints, and dodges pitfalls, and gets kicked, punched, and bruised in a part typically reserved for the likes of Dwayne Johnson.
In the role last explored by Angelina Jolie, Academy Award-winning actress Alicia Vikander (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Ex Machina, Jason Bourne) becomes video game heroine Lara Croft, only this version of the story is more rooted in the real world, with less heroine posing and no cocky catch phrases–and more sweat. The new Tomb Raider definitely fits alongside past video game adaptations, better than the prior films in the franchise, and nudging out more recent video game adaptations Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed. Unfortunately it comes on the heels of the immensely entertaining Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which opted for humor instead of drama. This isn’t a comedy, but would have benefited from some more levity along the way.
For an adventure about secrets and riddles, it doesn’t present much for the audience to sleuth out, as was done so well in the entertaining National Treasure movies. But to its credit it has some good special effects and exceptional chase sequences that are best viewed on the big screen. And this Lara Croft is always being chased or running from something. A bicycle race early on and a foot chase across boats docked off the coast of Hong Kong are filmed like a riveting James Bond opener. And an escape through raging rapids at the edge of a waterfall is perfectly executed and full-on exciting (in a good theater your acrophobia and claustrophobia may even kick in). The overall plot is a bit thin–Lara receives a key left by her father as she is about to sign an affidavit acknowledging his death and her inheritance, and she pursues clues to his secret work that leave her stranded on a secluded, legendary island housing an ancient tomb. This is about a fantasy video game character, so if you can push aside reality you may have a really good time.
Marvel’s unique approach in 2015’s Ant-Man rejuvenated the superhero franchise with something truly fresh. Skipping all the anger and drama of superheroes in conflict, it went for laughs and expanded the potential of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, allowing for a new take on superhero films beginning with that humor-filled romp, November’s Thor: Ragnarok. Add in the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies and you’d have the most fun superhero marathon you could put together this century. If comic books and superheroes are about escapist fun, no better superhero illustrates that theme than the underdog played so believably by Paul Rudd. Rudd also appeared as Ant-Man (and Giant Man) in Captain America: Civil War, and along with Tom Holland’s new Spider-man, Kevin Feige & Co. amped up what was becoming a ho-hum Avengers storyline.
Now we have the first preview for Ant-Man and The Wasp, and all signs point to another hit for Marvel, delivering exactly what fans want, our favorite characters looking cool and being cool: Michael Douglas back as Dr. Hank Pym, Rudd as the well-meaning but slightly befuddled Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, and–at last–Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne donning the The Wasp supersuit. We met the characters in the first film and now, origin story behind us, audiences will get to watch them take off. And, of course, we have a perfectly appropriate poster showcasing the new team-up:
We get a first glimpse of Ghost in this trailer, played by Hannah John-Kamen, who if audiences don’t know her already from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Killjoys, The Hour, Game of Thrones, and Black Mirror, you’ll know her from starring roles in Ready Player One, Tomb Raider, and Ant-Man and The Wasp.
How will Marvel handle the character? As the villain, or maybe not, with Walton Goggins also appearing as the comic book villain Sonny Burch? Laurence Fishburne is also coming our way in the film as the 1960s-1970s character Dr. Bill Foster aka Goliath.
Wait no further, check out this great trailer for this summer’s Ant-Man and The Wasp:
