'Three Musketeers' and 'Resident Evil' Director Talks About How Gaming Influences His Movies

If you’re some massive fuddy-duddy that only ever watches movies in theaters or just watches the “Feature Presentation” on DVD and Blu-ray, you might’ve watched the four video game franchise-inspired “Resident Evil” movies so far.

If you’ve willingly watched any installment after the first, you are my brother/sister in suffering, and you’ve probably at some point concluded “I don’t care if it says ‘Resident Evil,’ this was made by a brain-damaged chimp who’s never played a video game in his entire life.”

That’s just one reason I’m here: because I have just enough time on my hands to not only watch a movie, but watch it a second time with the audio commentary track playing.

So I get the special kind of confusion: if writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson loves the “Resident Evil” video game legacy as much as he claims, then why does he keep making “Resident Evil” movies that have less and less with each passing sequel to do with “Resident Evil”?!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you right now . . . . I’m absolutely no closer to answering that question.

Nevertheless, the director of the soon-to-be-released "The Three Musketeers" and the in-production "Resident Evil 5" told IGN.com that he’s been a gamer since he was a wee lad, and that being a gamer keeps influencing how he makes movies.

Um, Mr. Anderson? I’ve patiently sat through every “Resident Evil” movie, “Ultraviolet” and both “Alien vs. Predator” movies. As a life-long gamer, don’t you dare drag something I love into why you’re a K-Mart Michael Bay that breathes concentrated fail.

To be honest, I started believing him after reading the interview. I really don’t think he possesses the creative force to fictionalize a pivotal moment in which he forges a link between “Space Invaders” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” beyond both, in fact, taking place in space.

But that’s the other Dubya’s story, and he’s sticking to it. When his family would go on holiday to the British coastal town of Scarborough, where Anderson expects me to believe it would rain non-stop for two weeks (In the British Isles? Oh, do go on, Mr. Anderson…) and he would apparently hang about pinball arcades.

Then one day, he saw a big, black “Space Invaders” cabinet . . . . no, the cabinet was black. I don’t think it probably featured giant African-American extra-terrestrials, but having seen how the “Resident Evil” movies keep playing out like Ritalin-addled fan fiction inspired by the “Resident Evil” continuity, experience doesn’t let me question how he probably remembers the game.

In the afore-loosely-referenced commentary track for 2002's "Resident Evil" DVD release and a making-of featurette, Anderson apparently claimed he's been a lifelong "Resident Evil" fan since the franchise began with the original PlayStation in the late '90s. In fact, he was essentially personally approved by executives from video game publisher Capcom, the franchise's originators and owners, to helm the movie.

“Years later when I saw ‘2001’ and those apes were huddled around that Monolith, it took me back to that moment where all these kids were huddled around this monolithic black box that played ‘Space Invaders’,” Anderson recalled.

Thanks, Paul. You just compared my people to primates. Because we just don’t get that enough.

 “Those original video game consoles were huge and I remember lining up for hours to play it. I was so obsessed with it that I spent all of my money, including my bus fare, and had to walk home,” Anderson continued.

All kidding aside (OK, most of the kidding aside), the video game influence is right there in almost any movie he’s made. He’s an action director, and thus he crams with movies with as many explosions, battles, chases and pulse-pounding moments as he possibly can. There’s just this one problem.

That works fantastically with a game, usually. That’s because you’re controlling the action and the fast pace presents a reflex challenge that keeps the gamer attentive and into what’s happening. In his movies, it just leads to fast cuts and no one being able to tell what exactly is happening.

Hmm, and what can we apparently expect from his upcoming “The Three Musketeers”?

"What everyone takes away from the Three Musketeers is the 'all for one and one for all'," Anderson said. "People associate it with being a classic story of friendship, love and honor. Those are the things that have remained completely intact in our adaptation, the interrelationship between D'Artagnan and the musketeers, the doomed love of Athos from a lady, the young teenage love of D'Artagnan and Constance. All of those strengths of the book are strengths for the movie, as well. 

"Where we've changed things is just in the execution of some of the action scenes in an attempt to make it for a 21st Century audience."

(Gulp.)

Paul, honey, for the sake of all of us who keep giving your movies a chance . . . put down the controllers. Go read a book.

No, Paul. The “Resident Evil 4” instruction manual isn’t what we meant.