Zombies!

Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Shaun of the Dead

(Worst of 2004: #2)
(Best of 2004: #8)

Where did all these zombies come from? 28 Days Later, the Dawn of the Dead remake, and a few more I can't recall at the moment. For the last year we've been blitzed with zombie movies -- and as much I don't care for the general subject matter, sometimes a gem shines out of the blood and gore and decay to show you that all the walking undead might just be worth your time. And then, unfortunately, another film comes along that shows just how boring zombies can be.

It's the end of the world as we know it

I didn't like the first Resident Evil film, and I didn't really enjoy the games upon which it was based, so showing up for the sequel was perhaps not the smartest idea. But Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the very worst kind of bad movie: unlike something like Darkness Falls, you can't even have fun with the badness. There are no truly atrocious performances, no hilariously poor special effects, no ridiculous dialogue to speak of. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to get any emotional reaction out of it at all -- it's the most blandly boring and yawn-inducing film I've seen all year.

So Raccoon City is run by the hideously evil Umbrella Corporation (::sigh:: how I'd love to blame that painfully obvious symbolism on the filmmakers, but it was in the game, too), which operates like a Bill Gates daydream, running everything from schools to police squads to biological weapons of mass destruction. Their special weapon, the T-Virus, kills everyone and turns them into undead zombies. Why this gives you an advantage in a combat situation, I don't know (I would think it would be more intelligent to simply kill your enemies and not worry about bringing them back), but there it is. So the city is infected with the T-virus, everyone turns into shambling hordes, and our main characters must fight their way out to survive.

Along the way, director Alexander Witt (in his directorial debut) and screenwriter Paul W.S. Anderson (who directed the first film, and whose best picture to date seems to be Event Horizon, which sums up his career quite nicely) do nothing to make you give a damn about any of these characters. They're not interesting, they're not sympathetic, they're just there. And then the never-ending action sequences, with poorly-lit explosions and gunfights and other things that, again, are just there -- never once do you get that, "wow, cool" feeling that an action movie can give you, even the bad ones. In the end, Apocalypse's greatest sin is how it's just...there.

It's only a flesh wound

Now this is a zombie movie I can enjoy: Shaun of the Dead isn't about bullets and explosions. It's about its characters, all brilliantly realized in both writing (by director Edgar Wright and actor Simon Pegg, who plays Shaun) and in the pitch-perfect perfomances. It's sweet, touching and smart. And it's really, really funny.

When the undead take over London, it takes Shaun a good long while to notice -- he steps over dead bodies and fails to notice streaks and splatters of blood everywhere -- because he's far too wrapped up in his own problems: his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield) has dumped him for, among other things, his lack of drive and ambition. His plans for the two of them involve nothing more than hopping down to the Winchester, his favorite pub, every night for drinking with his roommate/best friend, the human ape Ed (Nick Frost). He works as an assistant manager at the British version of Radio Shack, lording over his much younger subordinates who don't respect him -- and why should they, when his "management" boils down to half-remembered cliches: "There is no 'I' in 'team'...but there is one in 'pie.' So there's an 'I' in 'meatpie'...." He tells one coworker that he does have plans for his life, things he wants to do; the withering, disdainful answer is "When?"

So it's understandable that Shaun isn't the first to notice when the whole of London is consumed by the undead. Especially since the zombies look just like everyone else anyway -- a hilarious opening credit sequence shows the world a bored, emotionally numb place. Everyone is already shuffling around lifeless, so when they start collecting body parts and eating people, it's barely worth mentioning (and for the first thirty or so minutes, Wright turns this into a pretty funny joke, with zombies taking victims in the background and hushed news reports about downed satellites on ignored televisions).

But Shaun does eventually notice the zombies (once they invade his home), and he and Ed make a mad race across town and back to save Liz from the same fate that has befallen so many others. Along the way, Shaun is forced to confront his mother (Penelope Wilton) and his dour, disapproving stepfather Philip (the marvelously deadpan Bill Nighy), who may or may not turn into zombies along the way.

It does all build up to a predictable conclusion, complete with rather cheesy deus ex machina. But it's turned into yet another joke, so I'm okay with it. And on the way there we get more hilarious scenes, like the moment when Shaun and Ed selectively choose which of their precious LPs to sacrifice as weapons against the undead, or when the group takes on the zombies en masse to a rocking Queen tune on the jukebox. And the best part: it takes a fart joke, the nadir of modern film and a crutch of weak-minded screenwriters everywhere, and not only makes it funny, but touching and moving. No, really. A fart joke. Shaun of the Dead is that good.

Ratings:

Resident Evil:Apocalypse -- DUD

Shaun of the Dead -- *****