Sci-fi claptrap added to old horror
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Director: Alexander Witt
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Jared Harris, Sienna Guillory, Sophie Vavasseur, Mike Epps
4.5/10
The trouble with horror films is that far too many of them try to raise the goosebumps by employing the same mechanism ? endless shots of people running, hiding from or fighting strange creatures out to devour their flesh. Resident Evil: Apocalypse, a sequel to the video game-inspired Resident Evil, adds some sci-fi claptrap and a dose of social commentary to the old horror tricks.
Alexander Witt?s film is about a futuristic city that is besieged by people infected by the T-virus, a strain that turns humans into blood-thirsty genetic freaks. It transpires that the virus was uncorked in the previous film, but there is no elaborate explanation about how the situation came to such a pass. Those who did not see Resident Evil have to remain content with the knowledge that the Hive, Racoon City?s underground lab, is being reopened and there are dangers lurking inside.
Milla Jovovich, one of the survivors of the original film, returns as the potential saviour of the doomed city and she looks great kicking butt. But the odds are heavily stacked against her because the mandarins at Umbrella Corporation, like self-seeking regimes everywhere, are more concerned about protecting their own interests than the city. The potential of a dramatic confrontation between good and evil, however, remains unexplored.
The director remains focused on the high-voltage action, which seems justified because that is what Resident Evil: Apocalypse is all about in the final analysis. But can watching the future go so horribly wrong be anybody?s idea of entertainment?
Ritu Parna Dutta
KalochIta
Director: Satarupa Sanyal
Cast: Sharad Kapoor, Rituparna Sengupta, Subhasish Mukherjee, Biswajit Chakraborty, Monami Ghosh, Joy Badlani, Chandan Sen, Arindam Ganguly, Baisakhi Marjit
4.5/10
Kalochita is a far cry from the politically charged Atatayee, Satarupa Sanyal?s last celluloid trek. Here, too, we have an atatayee ? not a Naxalite one, but a mafia don (Biswajit) who appoints Sharad, a smuggler cum ace biker, to pin down the travellers who perchance snapshot two black panthers at the Tibet border. When Sharad realises that he has actually been hoodwinked into tracking down the witnesses of a murder, his life already is in danger.
The story (Samaresh Majumdar) is pacy and tautly scripted. Characters, though, lack shades, leaving Rituparna and Sharad?s potential largely untapped. The script at times moves too fast to be able to get the feel of life at certain places (Darjeeling shopping mall, for instance) that usually gives such a film its repeat value. Apart from one refreshing bike-riding sequence through the snowy hillscape, there are far too many indoor sequences, which are claustrophobic.
Difficult to figure out why Sharad, out to rescue an intern, speaks so loudly. Or why the guard at the bathroom fails to hear the unidentified male voice even as he reacts sharply to a tincan tinkle. One may nitpick on similar other flaws, like Rituparna becoming a vocalist cum guitarist all of a sudden. Or like Sharad taking on blustering stenguns with a single unlicensed pistol.
But for all that, Kalochita is Sanyal?s best. Robiranjan Moitra?s editing and Sunirmal Majumdar?s cinematography (but not quite the music direction by the director herself) have worked to the film?s advantage.
Arnab Bhattacharya
