Silo (2023) s01e08 – Hanna

This episode, “Silo” assumes a conspiracy thriller mode. Sheriff Rebecca Ferguson starts the episode on the run, only to pull one over on Common and his goons again so there can be an episode. She’s also going to find out who and who she can’t trust—despite some solid direction from Adam Bernstein, he totally whiffs the Hitchcockian reveal, which hurts the third act a bit. The show gets it back for the cliffhanger—“Silo” just got officially renewed, though supposedly AppleTV+ usually orders two seasons and then does the “renewal” notice when the timing’s right.

I remembered more details from this episode—I think they seem familiar from that Wool comic adaptation—but I’m still real hazy.

This episode toggles between Ferguson flashing back to the story of her mom, played again by Sienna Guillory, who died when Ferguson was young and played by Amelie Child Villiers. Iain Glen, of course, plays his character both young and old, managing to look older in the younger makeup than as an old guy. He just aged real well.

And his accent’s a little better. At least good enough it doesn’t set Ferguson down any poor accent choices—hope she doesn’t forget how not to do the bad “Silo” accent between filming seasons one and two.

Most of the episode is Ferguson trying to stay one step ahead of Common while remembering mom Guillory’s last days, while also trying to undercover the conspiracy around her. There are two levels of conspiracies, of course. The more immediate murder conspiracy, but also the conspiracy where they’re keeping the nature of reality from the citizens. This episode raises more questions than it answers, and I’m very curious about what’ll get pushed to next season and what’ll be revealed in the final two episodes of the season.

There are just two to go, and the show’s still not done revealing the stakes.

Good acting from Uche and Tim Robbins in particular. It’s probably Ferguson’s best episode, but it also doesn’t ask her to do much more than run around in an action movie while vulnerable. Maybe it’s the vulnerable part. Though they still don’t seem to know what to do with Avi Nash. If he and Ferguson are supposed to have sincere chemistry together… hope they work on it before next season.

Bernstein will probably be back for the next episode—do all hour-longs now just do two episode blocks for each director or directing team—which is fine. This episode’s for bridging; it only runs forty minutes and gets Ferguson from A to B with some new knowledge to get her to C next. We’ll probably see C next episode. Though this episode suggests at least two more characters deserve point-of-view focuses.

“Silo”’s almost entirely managed to climb after a rocky start. But they’re running out of time to make that somewhat disconnected prologue mean something. The show’s more than proven it can do compelling, but it hasn’t proven it can retroactively make the less compelling stuff meaningful.

But for now, real good.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012, Paul W.S. Anderson)

I’m not sure what subtitle Resident Evil: Retribution should have, but it definitely shouldn’t be Retribution. The movie really doesn’t have enough story for a subtitle, actually. Unless it’s Old Friends. For the ten year anniversary of the franchise, director Anderson brings back a bunch of old faces–Sienna Guillory and Michelle Rodriguez get the two biggest parts (while Oded Fehr and Colin Salmon get the smallest). Anderson does come up with a good reason to bring them back, he just doesn’t know how to turn it into a story.

Retribution mostly alternates between good fight scenes and painful exposition scenes. Anderson’s got enough money (or CG’s less expensive) so he doesn’t do the regular exposition tricks the franchise used to do on the cheap. Instead there’re long patches of characters spouting exposition, usually either Li Bingbing or Shawn Roberts. Sadly those actors are the worst in the film.

The music, from tomandandy, occasionally compliments the action well but it’s usually just loud and annoying. Good production values though–Kevin Phipps’s production design and Glen MacPherson’s photography in particular.

Anderson opens the film with a great reverse sequence, really showcasing the effects and his vision for the picture. Unfortunately, once it’s over, he changes visions. Then he changes them again. And again. And… well, you get the idea.

He finally decides on star Milla Jovovich having a complicated relationship with an orphan (Aryana Engineer) and it works. He just decided too late.

Retribution‘s tedious, but not without good moments.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004, Alexander Witt)

Trying to figure out how to start this post was incredibly difficult. As far as sequels go, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is, tonally, a terrible sequel to the first film, but it’s still a perfectly reasonable b-movie. The first film, visually, is classy compared to this one, which has lots of quick cuts during fight scenes. The cuts aren’t distracting, since they’re about what’s expected from a movie like this one, and this stylistic difference is probably the least of all the differences between the two films. Apocalypse features, actor for actor, the worst cast in a film I’ve ever finished watching (at least in the last seven years). Besides Milla Jovovich, who’s good again but she’s not the protagonist–she runs all of her actions scenes, but none of her other ones–the cast of Apocalypse is unbelievably, almost uniformly terrible. Sienna Guillory is terrible, Razaaq Adoti is terrible, Mike Epps is actually just real bad, and Sandrine Holt is unspeakable. There’s not even an adjective for her acting prowess. The rest of the principles, besides Oded Fehr, who’s fine, are made up of European actors who stumble over their lines.

The reason Apocalypse works is because, even with the terrible actors, lots of stuff happens in different sets. More than any other film (except the monster who’s a cross between Robocop and The Toxic Avenger), it reminded me of Escape from New York. People running through a burnt-out city, battling zombies. It’s a fine way to spend ninety minutes, especially since Jovovich has some good scenes and I got to appreciate them, how shiny they were amid the rest of the film. Writer Paul W.S. Anderson, who didn’t direct and probably shouldn’t have, since the film plays to none of his “strengths,” actually makes her the only character with any depth, which makes the bad acting of the other principles so much worse. They’re caricatures of caricatures and, if the film appreciated that one, it’d probably be the best b-movie ever made.

The bad actors actually made Apocalypse a worse experience than it should have been, since most zombie movies have a watchable quality about them. Watching the film, marveling at the acting incompetence, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a worse film, but something needs to be said for the Paul W.S. Anderson genre. He can make perfectly fine bad b-movies, which is a rare quality these days.