Resident Evil: Retribution

By Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service

The nearly plotless shoot-’em-up “Resident Evil: Retribution,” the fifth entry in the series based on the video game, retains its usual high body count but lowers the splatter factor quite a bit.

Again, writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson puts eternally lithe Milla Jovovich as Alice, whose reaction to the dreaded T-virus has given her superpowers, into her iconic black tights to save the planet from an increasingly pesky infestation of flesh-eating zombies created by that biological weapon. She has a sidekick, Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), and again fights off gun-toting rivals Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) and the spider-clad Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory).

In addition to the undead, Alice also has to negotiate the machinations of the Umbrella Corp., which unleashed the virus, and her occasional outbreaks of maternal feelings when children are threatened. She accomplishes all this without ever smearing her lipstick. What a gal!

An abundance of zombies bursting out of closets and chasing victims down streets puts the boredom factor here at snooze-inducing.

The slow-motion fighting is completely by rote, but there’s far less slicing and dicing and more clean bullet holes this time around.

The film contains gun, knife and martial-arts violence and fleeting rough language.

 

Dredd 3D

By Joseph McAleer, Catholic News Service

There’s no need to dread going to see “Dredd 3D” (Lionsgate), so long as you’re a teenager addicted to violent video games. For “Dredd” is just that: a gamer’s fantasy come to life, in gory, blood-splattering 3D that will leave many viewers running for the doors.

Director Pete Travis (“Vantage Point”) has adapted the British graphic novel series “2000 A.D.” in this good-vs.-evil story set in a post-apocalyptic future. It’s a grim place and not for the squeamish, as hardly a frame goes by without a head being blown off or a body being skinned alive.

America, we are told, is an irradiated wasteland, where people live in skyscraper ghettos in Mega City One, a crime-ridden metropolis that stretches from Boston to Washington. The only source of law and order are the “Judges,” who roam the streets on way-cool motorcycles in search of delinquents. Justice is swift, as Judges act on the spot as judge, jury, and executioner. Talk about government efficiency!

One Judge stands taller than the rest: Judge Dredd (Karl Urban), a legendary figure both admired and feared throughout the city. You don’t mess with the helmeted Dredd as he bellows in a deep baritone, “I am the law!”

Dredd is assigned a rookie, Cassandra (Olivia Thirlby), and together they investigate the drug epidemic that is sweeping Mega City One. The drug is aptly called “Slo-Mo” for it slows down the passage of time, rendering the user euphoric (and much of the film in slow motion, too).

The drug cartel’s headquarters is the oddly named Peach Trees Block, a 200-story housing complex. In the penthouse lives Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), prostitute turned psychopath leader of the cartel. You don’t mess with Ma-Ma either, as she’s handy with a knife and will stop at nothing to protect her evil empire.

Needless to say, it all leads to a classic, albeit predictable, showdown as Dredd and Cassandra make their way to the top of the Block, with a whole lotta carnage along the way.

“Dredd” is an assault on the senses. It takes no prisoners with each killing more graphic and gory than the last, gobs of blood and bucketloads of body parts floating stylishly across the screen in slow-motion 3-D.

The film contains pervasive brutal and gory violence, including torture, frequent drug use, implied oral sex, a few instances of profanity, and occasional rough language.

 

Sparkle

By Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service

“Sparkle” (TriStar) is a soundtrack album packaged as a motion picture. But since this is evidently a point of pride for the filmmakers, take it as an observation, not a criticism.

This remake of the 1976 melodrama about a girl trio, set in 1968 Detroit, manages to be both as predictably familiar as your grandmother’s living room and as subtle as a runaway freight train. More overwrought and stale dialogue you’ve seldom heard. But the charisma of the performers and the consistently expressed desire of all the principal characters to lead moral lives hold the enterprise together.

Director Salim Akil together with his wife, screenwriter Mara Brock Akil, creates a grittily authentic, pulsating period club scene. There are skinny ties on the men, bouffant hairdos on the women; everyone smokes cigarettes wherever and whenever they choose. And we’re shown the precise moment in which wearing an Afro became a political statement.

The three Anderson sisters are Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), a talented songwriter too shy to sing leads; aggressively sexual Sister (Carmen Ejogo), who yearns for a show business career as a way to get out of her dead-end job at a department store; and Dolores (Tika Sumpter), who also sees performing as a means to an end. In her case, the goal is to earn enough money to pay for medical school.

Their mother, Emma (the late Whitney Houston in her final role), had attempted a music career when younger. Embittered by her failure, she tries to keep her daughters toeing the line with a church-centred life. They have to conduct their club adventures on the sly.

Everyone takes different paths to their respective dreams, and for a brief time, it even appears that Emma might have succeeded in keeping all of them off the stage.

Sister ditches the struggling Levi (Omari Hardwick) to marry the abusive Satin (Mike Epps), a comedian who has built a career telling racist jokes to white audiences. He beats Sister and gets her hooked on cocaine. Dolores finds scholarships for med school, while Sparkle continues to receive gentle encouragement from boyfriend Stix (Derek Luke).

But decision-making processes and “big” conversations do not appear. Situations simply change, either for better or worse, and the audience has to fill in the rest. Shunted to the side is a clergyman, the Rev. Bryce (Michael Beach), who ought to have advice to give, but doesn’t.

Sparkle’s strongest argument to her mother is, “Why did the Lord give me this gift if he didn’t want me to use it?”

The film builds to the time-honoured conclusion of all show-business tales, demonstrating that it’s possible to maintain moral standards and reach one’s potential – and with stunning high notes, too.

Houston’s hauntingly emotional rendition of the gospel classic “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” performed in church, is about as nice an epitaph for the singer as anyone could wish.

The film contains marital violence culminating in a homicide, cocaine use, sexual banter, several racial epithets and a fleeting scatological reference.

 

Moonrise Kingdom

By Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service

Director Wes Anderson’s films aren’t meant to be either easily understood or likable. So it’s no surprise that the pretentious, deadpan whimsicality of “Moonrise Kingdom” (Focus) overwhelms its core story of adults trying to do the best for two troubled preteens.

Set in a supposedly more innocent, intricately detailed and stylized 1965, the film follows the travails of 12-year-olds Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) on fictitious Penzance Island, off the coast of New England.

Sam is a foster child and the least popular but most skilled, member of his troop of Khaki Scouts (a fictional stand-in for the Boy Scouts of America). He runs away from their encampment because he’s fallen in love with Suzy, the gloomy daughter of Walt and Laura Bishop (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).

The pair finds their haven on a strip of beach Sam dubs Moonrise Kingdom. As one would expect, their connection is more emotional than sexual. So a scene of the two of them slow-dancing in their underwear and exchanging a tentative kiss is meant to be an ironic riff on the highly sexualised atmosphere of the 1980 film “The Blue Lagoon.”

Audience members who don’t get that reference may feel a bit queasy. The interlude doesn’t quite cross over into the full-blown exploitation of children, but it teeters on that edge.

Ben’s Scouting pals eventually decide to help the couple, and there’s a very odd and droll “wedding” in an interdenominational Scout chapel, even though it’s made clear that the ceremony is in no way legal.

Anderson, who co-wrote the film with Roman Coppola, portrays most of the adults as caring and sensitive, if occasionally clueless. When Sam’s foster parents don’t want him returned to them even if he’s found, police chief Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) and Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) do their best to keep Sam from the horrific possibility of being sent to a state institution.

Laura and Captain Sharp have been having an affair, but this is indicated only in some very stale dialogue, and the ramifications of their relationship are not explored.

The soundtrack makes extensive use of Benjamin Britten’s wonderful children’s opera “Noye’s Fludde” (“Noah’s Flood”) as well as some other Britten melodies, which together set a refined mood. But Anderson and Coppola’s script then spoils the whole effect with an over-the-top plot development.

The film contains an instance of underage sensuality, a reference to an extramarital affair and fleeting crass language.