Today, I can finally say, I truly relaxed. I woke up alone around 12:30 or so in the afternoon, and found Nicki watching TV. It didn't last very long, as we uh...disappeared for a bit. Yeah. That's what happened. So butt out. Anyways, we reappeared around two, and I slacked out on the futon, playing Devil May Cry again. For the past couple of days, I was constantly running around on the game just hacking up all the monsters that I can find in order to collect 35,000 red orbs, which are used to purchase better attacks and such, and I've been at it off and on now for three days. Around three o'clock, I was hacking away at another lizard creature when it occurred to me: I could build on the good will I earned from Nicki by taking her on a dinner-and-a-movie date tonight. I know we're already married, but you still have to date every now and then, or the lady gets cranky. AS if the gods were smiling upon me, I was granted unusual skill and insight into my game, as I whizzed on through the multiple monster waves like nothing. It was a good time. Needless to say, I got my 35,000 orbs, my character became god-like, the peasants were freed, the sun started shining, and Yasser Arafat was assassinated. Okay, Arafat didn't drop off the earth, but it's a nice thought.

I took Nicki to dinner at Applebee's around six o'clock. I've noticed that it is now common practice for all pickup trucks weighing 1-Ton or more to park in two parking spots, and other cars ill park properly in the adjoining slots, making it impossible for other cars to use any of that wasted space. My town may be small, but we're not that small. Anyways, we had to wait to be seated. In other words, we had to be seated before we could be seated. I love the irony of it all. The movie was supposed to start around 7:20, so we couldn't dawdle over our meal. W e didn't have to wait long for our food, amazingly, and were out of there and on the way to the theater by about 6:50. We got there fifteen 'til the supposed scheduled start time, but it turns out it wasn't supposed to start until 7:40. We hung out in the lobby for a bit, looking at the posters and such. Anyways, I bet you're all wondering what movie we saw. I'll tell you then.

We saw Resident Evil.

Its like Star Wars: I know so much about Resident Evil, and it has become something that I had to see the movie. Now, I've been a fan of the RE series ever since the B-movie like game first came out for the Sony PlayStation 1 back in the mid-1990s. I still have the copy of the first release, along with a copy of the Director's Cut, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and even a copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica X for the PlayStation 2. Now that you all know that I know how the plot goes, I have to admit that I went in with a semi-open mind. I'd already read news reports about it not really following the plot line of the first game, and I had already seen the movie trailer. I also knew that they'd been working on a movie even since the release of the second game, but scuttlebutt had it that it was hung up due to script issues.

Anyways, I was very impressed with the make-up job they had there for the zombies. When I saw the scene with a zombie moving forward, it's right foot twisted in a way that it was never meant to go and looking like it was about to fall off, I had to cringe. There were a few questionable make-up jobs here and there, but it's kinda tough to make each individual zombie truly horrible for every portion of the movie. It may have been the sound itself, but I could almost feel the horror each 'victim' felt, and the helplessness that must have been running through each character's mind as they were literally eaten alive. Anyways, the plot is a combination of the plot lines of ResEvil 1 and 2, in that they start out in a mansion, and that there's a secret train station that takes you to a secret lab in which the highly-illegal T-Virus is being created by a mega-corporation called Umbrella Inc. The T-Virus breaks out and into the ventilation system, infecting all 500 personnel in the lab witht eh T-Virus. The T-Virus has the unique capability of reanimating the dead. While not reviving them, it reanimates the dead with only the ability to do basic things, such as feast on the living.The main compter, with an intelligent A.I. system, notices the infection, then traps and 'kills' everyone. A mercenary group, also made up of Umbrella specialists (a la ResEvil 3) armed with MP-5 shorts and either CAR-15s or cut-down M4A1s, I couldn't really tell. I suspect they were CAR-15s though by the sound that the 'bullets' made though. Enough about the guns. They're sent in to find out what happened to the lab, located a half-mile underground, since all they know is that the computer killed everyone but with no real explanation. The computer traps and kills most of them, and the survivors have to battle the system, hordes of the undead, and a humanoid creature that can walk on walls with its sharp claws, and has a long reaching tongue that can pierce armor. This creature had it's original debut in Resident Evil 2, and was given the name 'Licker' because of it's tongue.

The movie had plenty of suspenseful scenes, and if I wasn't freaked out about it, I'd probably go see it again next week. I'd definitely recommend it to everyone, gamers and non-gamers alike. It's not a movie designed for gamers, but for those new to the franchise. I feel that it does justice to the game series. The movie ends with a definite lead-on to the next movie, which looks like it will probably follow more closely to the plot line of ResEvil 3, though I doubt we'll find out that the heroine is Jill Valentine, and we get to see the misadventures of Carlos, both conspicuously absent from this movie.

Ugh...the fatigue is killing me right now. Time to sleep now.

"When I get out of this, I think I need to get laid." - Raine, Resident Evil: The Movie