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Rating: 3 stars

All movies seen on 03/15/2002

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Resident Evil (2002)

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

Horror | Science Fiction

Most recently watched by sleestakk, sensoria, zombiefreak, ashe5k, DaNiedabaya, eduardovictory, seanCduregger, scottfinn

Overview

When a virus leaks from a top-secret facility, turning all resident researchers into ravenous zombies and their lab animals into mutated hounds from hell, the government sends in an elite military task force to contain the outbreak.

Rated R | Length 100 minutes

Actors

Milla Jovovich | Michelle Rodriguez | Eric Mabius | James Purefoy | Martin Crewes | Colin Salmon | Pasquale Aleardi | Heike Makatsch | Ryan McCluskey | Indra Ové | Oscar Pearce | Anna Bolt | Joseph May | Robert Tannion | Jaymes Butler | Stephen Billington | Fiona Glascott | Liz May Brice | Torsten Jerabek | Marc Logan-Black | Michaela Dicker | Jason Isaacs

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

This review originally appeared on ZENtertainment.com. As of the last snapshot on November 28, 2003, it had 1,263 hits.

Resident Evil is Much Better Than Its Predecessors

Death. Blood. Nigh-unstoppable killing machines. The horror genre is built upon such standards and RESIDENT EVIL delivers on all of these fronts and more. Although it does fall short in some areas, EVIL is a fun, blood-filled ride.

The Umbrella Corporation is a latter day Microsoft with ultimate authority in daily lives. While their financial front is electronics and home items, their real money and real development stems from genetic research - both of the medical and biological warfare type. Their most deadly biological agent is the T-Virus - a genetically engineered virus that can revive a dead body and turn it into a bloodthirsty killing machine. When someone steals the virus and the antidote and then releases the virus into the Umbrella Corporation’s underground lab, the Hive, on purpose, a Sanitation crew is sent in to resolve the matter.

Alice (Jovovich) is a Sanitation agent that has lost her memory. Her job, along with her fellow agent, is to live a cover life as a married couple and protect the last defense against world contamination - an emergency door leading to the outside world. When the thief releases the virus into the Hive, the lab’s central computer, The Red Queen, kicks in failsafes and locks the compound doors and kills everyone in the compound, trying to prevent the airborne virus from spreading into the world. The Sanitation Crew’s job is to enter the Hive and find survivors, not knowing what has happened inside the compound. They enter through the emergency door that Alice is guarding and drag her, her husband, and a cop along for the ride. They, of course, quickly find out what truly happened, as the corpses become animated and are set loose throughout the compound. The film plays out in typical horror fashion with many dying along the way.

Video games made into films have largely been piles of waste (MARIO BROS, DOUBLE DRAGON anyone?), yet RESIDENT EVIL succeeds where others have failed. The film stays true to the game series in many details and adds to it with Jovovich. Jovovich pulls off the true femme fatale action role convincingly while not being afraid to add sex appeal; Milla is truly the star of this film. While the roles of the rest of the cast are fairly ill-defined and their characters are spiced with somewhat sorrowful attempts at dialogue, Michelle Rodriguez and Eric Mabius only add depth. Rodriguez plays the “tough bitch” and she plays it well. She varies between humor, sorrow and action star in the blink of an eye. Eric Mabius’ character, while having a thin character background, is likable and you can sympathize with his concerns.

The Big Bad in this film, which won’t be revealed here, is a mainstay in the EVIL universe. While interesting to see on film, the CG, while not as bad as The Scorpion King at the end of THE MUMMY RETURNS, was absolutely disgraceful. The crew should have taken the money they spend on the one MATRIX, bullet-time effect (as all action movies must have now apparently) and applied it toward the Big Bad. While you knew it was logically CG, your eye can easily see the errors that are made.

Characters in horror movies always make stupid mistakes; it’s a given. However, some of the mistakes that these characters made were utterly laughable and wholly unexplainable other than to provide explanation for a plot point. During the middle of the film, the story makes several jumps in logic and hurdles over small plot details that are somewhat annoying.

The most surprising aspect, though, was that Anderson was able to keep up a suspenseful pace most of the time. The film, in a scene concerning very small bits of cloth, also leaves itself wide-open for a franchise in the making. RESIDENT EVIL, which is a prequel to the video games, is a good time and a good starting point for future films. The script suffers in places, but it is otherwise a fun ride. Leave the children at home and have a good time.

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