Waffling Taylors Goes To The Movies

Don’t forget to check out the other episodes in the series. Make sure to click here to see which movies we’ve already covered - we’re sure that you’ll love what you have to say.

Featured Image

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Players

Squidge

Jay

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Content Warning

Due to the nature of the movie we talk about in this episode, we’d recommend that you don’t listen to this one with little ones around.

Please listen responsibly

Show Notes

One thing before we start: we actually recorded this episode way back in June of 2020 - even though it came out in October 2020

we record these episodes quite far in advance, you see

Continuing on from our Double Dragon movie episode, and because it’s spoopy season, we decided to talk about the first live action Resident Evil movie

or as I call it "Alice in Wonderland with Zombies"

that’s right, THAT movie. The movie that started a series of Mary-Sue Matrix rip offs, with zombies and not-so-subtle references to the games. With those references being used only to remind you that it’s based, ever so slightly, on a series of video games.

Thoughts Going In

We both knew that this movie was famous for having the thinnest possible references to the original source material, or to the script that George A. Romero had penned for Sony. In fairness the script wasn’t great, but it was a whole heap better than what we ended up getting

go check the script out over at DailyScript

I also remember seeing this movie when it first came out. I’ll say now what I said then:

Jay's Avatar Jay:

It’s an ok Alice in Wonderland movie, a forgettable action-horror movie, and a terrible Resident Evil movie

might be giving away my rating for this movie a little too early

The Plot

Jay's Avatar Jay:

You can think of this as "Alice in Wonderland with zombies" or "The Matrix with zombies"

Seriously, this movie is so universally panned that I’m convinced that it’s made of iron

no? I thought that was worth a chuckle, at least

so bad is it in fact, that the CinemaSins video on it stops abruptly

Seriously, never have opening narration - either as text or as a voice over. Show, don’t tell is a by-word in script writing.

Here’s the 10,000 ft view of the plot:

  • Umbrella bad; make viruses
  • “Alice” and “Spence” are operatives who watch over the secret lab, found under a mansion
  • They are married, but it’s a sham
  • Spence steals the T-Virus and the cure, releases some in the secret lab
  • Red Queen (the “AI” controlling the lab) locks the lab down
  • Alice takes a shower and passes out
  • “Special Forces” break into the mansion
  • “Matt” is taken into custody by Special Forces
  • Sexual tension between Rain and JD
  • Red Queen kills the majority of the “Special Forces”
  • Shutting down The Red Queen leads to zombie outbreak
  • JD dies
  • Everyone goes for a walk
  • “Alice” goes all Matrix on us
  • Matt meets his zombified sister
  • Everyone has one hour to get out
  • JD bites Rain and she somehow gets out of harm’s way
  • “There’s a cure!”
  • Spence legs it with the cure, but is munched by a “totally not a licker”
  • “Kill her and I’ll let you out”
  • Kaplan Deus ex machina’s them to the train
  • Everyone except for “Alice” and Matt die
  • Matt is taken away to the “Nemesis Project”
  • Alice gets a haircut, paper kimono & hacks a card reader with a needle
  • Day of the Dead reference
  • The End

As you can see, it’s a little more involved than the Double Dragon movie. There are hints of references to the Resident Evil series

everything up to, and including Resident Evil Zero had been released by this point

but it’s clear that Paul W.S. Anderson wanted to create his own thing. Which was very clearly his attempt to make a rip-off of the Matrix movies, but with zombies.

How Would We Rate It?

We don’t usually rate games or movies, in fact we have never done that. And this was a conscious decision that we made early in the life of the site

we discussed this with Chief on one of his early episodes

But we needed to figure out a way to tell you all whether we think you should watch this movie or not. In order to do this, we decided that we’d need three ratings for three categories.

The ratings are:

  • Love it (best)
  • Try it
  • Fling it into a tree (worst)

And the categories are:

  • As a generic, action-horror movie

    talk about being specific

  • As a video game movie
  • As a Resident Evil the video game movie
Squidges Ratings
CategoryRating
As a generic, action-horror movieTry it
As a video game movieTry it
As a Resident Evil the video game movieFling it to a tree
Jays Ratings
CategoryRating
As a generic, action-horror movieTry it
As a video game movieTry it
As a Resident Evil the video game movieFling it into a tree

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners. Please see the above list for copyright details pertaining to music used.

Games Covered

We mentioned 9 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: