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That tagline....blargh.
Resident Evil didn't seem like a major video game movie candidate to spawn 5 sequels, develop a cult following, and become the most successful video game movie franchise of all time. While none of them did particularly well in the USA, their overseas box office gross was gigantic, and may very well be a precursor to all the dumb action movies that everyone here asks, "Why are they making this?" while foreign nations want more. What was it that the original Resident Evil movie did so well to establish this franchise nobody saw coming.
Honestly, it's a pretty standard zombie flick that is pretty reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead or even Night of the Living Dead where the movie is focused on a contained area. Instead of a mall or a house, this one takes place in Umbrella's underground laboratory underneath Raccoon City*. STARS is sent to investigate why the AI called The Red Queen went homicidal killing everyone in the lab. To add to the "group of strangers" thing so many zombie movies use, they run into Alice played by Milla Jovovich, a dude claiming to be a cop (Matt), and another dude (Spence). Alice and Spence both have amnesia due to the Red Queen gassing them, Alice gradually learns that she is a badass, and Spence gradually learns that he is an asshole and the entire reason this movies plot happens.
Why is she wet?.......wait. Nevermind.
*I'm assuming everyone reading knows the very basics of the Resident Evil universe even without playing the games or seeing the movies.
However, unlike most zombie movies that it emulates, this one is far more of an action movie than a horror movie. In fact, the parts of the movie that try to be horror are the worst parts. Fake out jump scares (there is like 6 of them. SIX!), bizarre music stingers, creepy little girl (who is the AI), and side screen zombie attacks...all land with a cringey thud. It's almost like Paul W S Anderson, who has directed every Resident Evil movie FYI, just threw these aspects in as nods to the video game series roots without giving two shits about them. He just wants to shoot some zombies, man. These horror staples are completely absent in the second half of the film.
The action is actually really scaled down compared to the later movies and I think it's a better film for it. I haven't seen all of the later Resident Evil movies, but Alice is basically an unstoppable killing machine in some. She is pretty goddamn normal here, albeit, with a very talented Jason Bourne style soldiering going on in certain scenes. I...can't believe I'm about to write this but...it was probably better that this stuff got blown out of proportion in later movies rather than her more real "average person in extreme situation" scenes because if there is one thing Paul WS Anderson cannot do, it's Realism. Well, there are several things he can't do actually but Realism is one of them.
Pictured here.
The story and characters are actually pretty okay. Yeah, I'm a little shocked I'm writing that too, but it's true. Maybe it's after knowing what this franchise will turn into makes this movie look good in comparison, I dunno, but it's still more bad than good. Yeah, Matt (the guy faking being a cop) is really only there to be sequel bait for Nemesis in the next movie and yeah, half the STARS team has one or two lines of dialogue tops so that they can up the death count, but ehhhhhhhh. Alice is fine. Spence is fine. Michelle Rodriguez plays Rain, a character that is so beloved she is in later sequels I didn't see although she died. She also takes a decade to turn into a zombie from a bite when Spence turns into a zombie in like 5 minutes. Not uh, not consistent with your rules movie.
There aren't as many plot holes as I remember in this movie. All major plot relevant things are explained...shocking enough. The movie uses flashbacks in conjunction with amnesia to explain main character motivations. Big picture stuff, like anything about Umbrella, is questionable (Umbrella's plan will go from questionable to absurd in just the movies I have seen). Why Umbrella didn't mission brief their own team about the hallway of lasers guarding the Red Queen is beyond my understanding. Also, the lasers have a higher body count than the zombies (3 to 1. The other 2.5 die from the Licker), so Umbrella is really bad at planning or just super evil. Also...laser hallway?
Pictured here.
All my gripes with the film are pretty minor. No, I don't know why the Red Queen only has knockout gas in the mansion but can kill everyone in the labs. I also don't know why the Red Queen decided to fuck with those people in the elevator. Shit, I also don't know why the Red Queen forgets that it has an EMP strapped to her near the end of the movie when she wouldn't unlock the doors. The...the Red Queen is dumb.
Finally, I need to mention how gutsy and/or idiotic it was for this movie to end with sequel bait. It's a video game movie. They never do well yet so many end like this. The Super Mario Bros Movie ended with a full blown cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Mortal Kombat had just regular sequel bait but at least it got a TERRIBLE sequel. There was no guarantee Resident Evil would have gotten a sequel so ending the movie with a shot of a destroyed Raccoon City was...
Did The Movie Honor Its Source Material?
For the most part, yes. Umbrella, zombies, lickers, and the T-virus are all here. The mansion was here too but only briefly. There isn't any puzzles that require massive backtracking to solve because that would be dumb to put into a movie, but oddly, there is backtracking in this movie technically. There is even a scene where the characters are running low on ammo. Not sure if that was intentional but inventory management is always a big staple in the games. Also, just like the games, the movie isn't really scary as it is more general tension.
The movie does lack the creepy factor of the games though. Also, the movie doesn't feature a single character from the game series. They will be included later but ehhhhh.
Conclusion
It's not bad. It's basically a schlocky B zombie movie but with a good budget. It was pretty entertaining. It wasn't confusing, stupid Red Queen aside, and the movie didn't make me hate Alice....yet. This movie series though...it get worse. Way worse.
Rating
8 out of 10*
*Before you kill me, this rating is for "video game movies" only. So if I eventually rate a movie 10/10 I'm NOT saying it's on par with The Godfather okay. Chill.
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