{"id":60962,"date":"2026-10-19T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T04:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=60962"},"modified":"2026-10-18T21:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T01:02:00","slug":"resident-evil-and-forgotten-island-spoiler-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=60962","title":{"rendered":"Resident Evil and Forgotten Island (spoiler free)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made people mad repeatedly talking about the new Resident Evil<\/em> movie. I’m not a humongous fan; I don’t know the lore inside and out. I know the first few games reasonably and I know the first few games have been remade. I’ve played the first few games. Not over and over, just some. I know the initial story more or less. I’ve seen the first few Mila Jovovich Resident Evil<\/em> movies, and I knew from the start those movies (at least initially, anyway) take information FROM the games but aren’t actually live-action versions of the games. For the most part, not even remotely. I have been told there are some animated Resident Evil<\/em> movies that are lore- and bridge- stories, not retellings. My point being I was kind-of hoping when I heard they were doing a Resident Evil<\/em> “remake” or “reboot” the intention was to…just tell the story as depicted in the games.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then when I saw the trailer for the new movie I knew they weren’t. Rather, it would be an attempt to tell a different story that coincided with the games’ stories. I complained about this on-line. NOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE MOVIE or anything; simply that the movie was telling a different story and I was less-interested in that. I was not-very-politely told to feck-off; the movie clearly wasn’t for my misguided and delusional behind and no one wanted my money anyway.<\/p>\n

But, as I mentioned, I had access to time and a movie theater while I was in Laughlin, Nevada; so I went to see Resident Evil<\/em>. Just because it wasn’t telling the story I wanted to see doesn’t mean it was a bad movie. And it was getting a lot of good reviews.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I’m probably going to make a lot of people mad again. I didn’t like it. NOT because it didn’t tell the story I wanted. That ship already sailed and I didn’t go in expecting ANYTHING regarding story direction or composition. In my opinion, and of course this is ALL just my opinion, Resident Evil<\/em> is NOT a good movie. It’s not fun to watch. This was the second movie EVER I have seen in a theater and wanted my money back when I was done. I have been told the way the story is constructed and the characterization of the protagonist is very “in vogue” at the moment. One of my kids said “yeah, people on Tumblr probably love it.” I don’t know anything about that. I called the main character the “protagonist” simply because that is the role he occupies: his actions drive the story and the scene construction implies you are following him to the end of the movie to see if he accomplishes his goal. And yet, he is completely unsympathetic. In fact NO ONE in the movie is sympathetic. I suspect this is intentional to an extent. While the protagonist survives to the end and does the thing he is supposed to do, he is in the end no different from everything he’s been through. This is both an “of course” idea; it’s the beginning of a known story after all; AND ALSO…that sure is one way to do it. Probably not the way I would have chosen, but it wasn’t my movie.<\/p>\n

You watch it if you want to. Movie enjoyment is individual. I can’t recommend it.<\/p>\n

On the other hand I can’t recommend Forgotten Island<\/em> enough. With bonus points for late GenX\/early Millennials; the nostalgia for the late 1980’s and early 1990’s is VERY strong. This movie hasn’t even made its budget back yet; which blows my mind. Some. One thing I can say for sure is Sony dropped the ball majorly marketing this film. I first became aware of it during previews for the Supergirl<\/em> movie this past summer. I don’t actually go out to the movies very often; the past few months have been unusual. So I’m hoping they put the early trailers in front of more movies than that. Because whether it deserved it or not, Supergirl<\/em> bombed. Regardless, that trailer was a pretty accurate preview of Forgotten Island<\/em>. Really made me want to see it. I never saw another trailer or ad until the week the movie was released in September. THAT trailer was awful. If I didn’t recognize characters I would swear it was for a different movie. It was just a mash-up of people screaming.<\/p>\n

Set in the Philippines around the time period I indicated, two young girls; Jo and Raissa become best friends around Jo’s grandmother’s tales of the Island of Nakali. The island is built around Filipino folklore; more than I can get into. Jo and Raissa’s school lives are shown over an extensive montage, along with their matching charm bracelets decorated with mementos recalling their memories. After high school graduation, Jo continues on to a series of fast food jobs (her talent as an illustrator is only depicted in passing and can be easily missed) while Raissa accepts a scholarship to attend CalTech in California; a decision she delayed telling Jo about and even tried blaming on her parents, before finally revealing it’s her own choice. CalTech actively pursued her literally as a rocket scientist, something a bit more directly shown in the growing-up montage.<\/p>\n

In the background a core promise of the best friends was to “find” their way to Nakali Island, a place that not only was revealed through Jo’s grandmother’s stories but that she claimed to have once visited herself through a magical beacon. Jo gets Raissa away from her “going away” party for one more wild night together, which culminates first in a testing of their perceptions of their friendship; AND THEN the activation of the gateway to Nakali. First Jo then Raissa fall in.<\/p>\n

The two wake up on an unfamiliar beach, obviously having experienced many adventures since they fell into the gateway. From there they have to learn what happened, AND how to get home. And in the end both girls will have to confront what their friendship means and what their MEMORIES mean, and how important they are.<\/p>\n

Forgotten Island<\/em> is a tremendous movie. It’s also a tremendous ANIMATED movie. One of a handful of films on my “must buy” list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made people mad repeatedly talking about the new Resident Evil movie. I’m not a humongous fan; I don’t know the lore inside and out. I know the first few games reasonably and I know the first few games have been remade. I’ve played the first few games. Not over and over, just some. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paige-writes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60962"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60978,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60962\/revisions\/60978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}