Resident Evil and Oakshire Brewing's Overcast Espresso Stout

It's taken me a while to finish this post.  I actually reviewed this movie on Halloween night.....with my wife!  My wife hates horror movies and despises zombie movies.  She doesn't see the beauty in there metaphors and believes that they are, get this, too graphic!!!  But once a year she puts fear and personal ideology aside and watches a zombie movie with me.  I let her pick the movie so she feels a little more comfortable about the whole situation.  In fact I was feeling so nice that i let her pick the beer as well!!!  She's usually pretty good at this because her favorite styles are Russian Imperial Stouts, Double IPAs, and Barleywines.  So I trust her....more or less.  She decided she would play it safe and pick Resident Evil.  The reason for this is that she knows it's not overly scary and would have some Hollywood produce entertainment value.  She also came home with Oakshire Brewing's Espresso Stout.  I do love things from Eugene, OR so how bad could it be......and so we began.

I think the scariest part of the whole film is the beginning sequence.  Not very promising to a wife who is shielding her eyes as a woman gets decapitated trying to climb out of an elevator.  I haven't seen this movie in quite a while and I must say.....it's better than i remember.  After seeing the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movies it's hard to imagine Alice as anything but some kind of strange super person (especially the 3rd movie).  But there she is, scared and defenseless.  And you actually get to watch her grow through the movie as she starts to remember who she is.  I do have a couple of problems with the plot of this movie.  First, they were able to build a holographic, completely automated, computer based security system to control The Hive.  But they can't get a heads up as to what went wrong without sending in a team of six swat team members.  You'd think they could download a little security footage and say "Oh shit....Guys look at this!!!!  Some of that blue shit...

 ...oh man!!!  Guys the blue shits got out......

we got zombies.  Lets get a small army of soldiers together and let them know what their up against.  Oh and don't forget to tell them about that laser room.

The security code for it is "lasers off". Okay don't forget to shoot for the head".  Sadly there was no such briefing.  But I guess if they had known that stuff then it wouldn't have been much of a movie.

I'm weary of my wife's beer decision as soon as i read the label.  It's only 5.8% abv.  This matters more for a coffee blended stout than for any other beer.  I'll tell you why.  The bitterness and astringency that the coffee can add needs to be balanced with sweet malt and other roasted malty flavors.  If there isn't enough malt backbone then the beer comes out tasting like old coffee and a little beer mixed in.  So I pour this sloshy black liquid into a couple of Sam Adams glasses and take my first sniff.  It's all coffee.  Well, maybe not ALL coffee, but its at least MOSTLY coffee.  There is a slight cocoa aroma and a twist of roasted malt but for the most part this is a cold cup o Joe.  I place swirl up the a tan head and buried my nose deep into the glass hoping for a little something more.......nothing.  First lovely sip.....shit.  A real bomber.  Perhaps it's because of my own high expectations for things bearing the label "(coffee product) Stout".  Langunitas Cappuccino Stout, Great Divide's Espresso Oak Aged Yeti, Southern Tier's Mokah, Jah*va and countless others all deliver a strong coffee beer without overwhelming the BEER portion.  Get those instead.  This is a over carbonated, underflavored, thin and forgettable beer.  This beer could be much better by upping mouth feel, and maltiness.  But at that point it would be a different beer.  The long and the short of it......this beer sucks.

The movie went two far with it's first instillation.  They had the base for a great zombie movie.  They had realistic(ish) zombies and decent actors.  In fact there were complex dimensions to this movie about that i had forgot about.  Like the transformation of our heroin from a forgetful blond with a high cut red dress into a battle hardened blond ninja....in a high cut red dress.  I also have a problem with Michelle Rodriguez.  Nobody thinks your hot.  In fact your husky voiced, "I'm one tough bitch" routine is really getting old.  As soon as we see you we know exactly what we're in for.  How does it feel to know that your a more one dimensional than Keanu Reeves?

I can't quite give this movie the gold sticker since it has some kind of mutated strange ass zombie creature in it.  They seem to always do something like that.  They have a perfectly good movie, then they go add something ridiculas and ruin it.  A zombie that feeds on fresh DNA and mutates into a SUPER ZOMBIE LION DOG THING!!!!

The Beer:

Aroma – 6/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 7/20

Palate – 1/5 

   Overall – 3/10

Total = 19/50

  

The Movie:

Production – 3/5

Plot – 3/5

Gore – 4/5

 Zombies – 3/5

  Overall – 3/5

So this is the first film that in actually  rated higher based on all my categories than I would have given it for overall enjoyment.  In my head the whole time it was a 2, but low and behold it rates out as a three.

Oh, and I'm back and blogging!