Resident Evil

Resident Evil

After tomb raiders success the bar was set higher than it’s ever been for video game movies and in 2000 Paul Anderson and screen gems decided to take on one of the big boy’s resident evil.

The plot of the first resident evil seems more like a side story to the games as no game characters, unless you count zombies, are in it. The movie opens with a scene showing the theft and release of the t-virus. The result of this is the computer running the lab kills everyone to make sure the virus doesn’t escape. Next we are introduced to our heroine, Alice who is naked and unconscious in the shower. She wakes up and looks around her mansion finding a dresser with guns. Shortly after she’s dressed and steps outside a guy named matt pulls her inside just as a group of soldier’s crash through the windows.

Matt says he’s a cop but the soldiers handcuff him anyway. The soldiers then reveal a hidden entrance to an underground lab known as the hive they also explain that because the computer did what it did it filled the mansion with a gas that gave Alice temporary amnesia. The group gets on a train and there they discover another amnesiac Spence who is under cover with Alice as husband and wife.

The team makes their way to the red queens chamber but before they can make it to her circuit boards a defensive laser cuts half the team to shreds. They finally get the red queen shut off but that unlocks all the doors and frees the zombies. A big zombie shoot out starts and shortly after everyone gets separated and Alice figures out that matt is not a cop but is trying to bring down umbrella and Alice was going to help his sister do so.

Soon everyone makes their way back to the red queen chamber to turn on so she can tell them a way out. The remaining members of the team make their way through the tunnels but are ambushed by zombies with one of the members getting separated he tells them to go. Alice Spence matt and rain make their way to a lab where Alice remembers there’s an anti virus but it’s gone.

At this point Spence regains his memory and remembers he was stealing the virus and antivirus and they are on the train. He leaves them and heads for the train. Alice rain and matt try and get out of the room but the red queen has locked the doors and refuses to let them out unless they kill rain because she is infected. Alice tells the red queen they can get to the antivirus but the red queen shows them a video of a monster called a licker killing Spence.

Alice gets pissed that the red queen won’t listen and destroys the computer monitor as a licker is trying to get inside the lab. A power surge hits and another door opens to reveal the team member that was separated a while ago he has blown the red queens circuits and she won’t be online again.

The four team members race to the train. They make it an inject rain with the antivirus. The licker catches up with the mind while Alice is fighting the licker matt has to kill rain who is now a zombie in the process the licker scratches matt. Upon exiting the hide matt and Alice are seized by scientists stating that he wants him in the nemesis program.

Alice awakes in a hospital and soon finds her way outside only to find out that raccoon city has been taken over by zombies she grabs shoot gun out of a cop car and prepares for battle then he movie ends.

The problems for this movie started back in 1999. Originally Capcom and Sony asked George A Romero the king of zombie movies to write and direct it. He came up with a script that involved Jill valentine and Chris Redfield. His plot revolved around the Arklay incident of the first game and Barry, Ada and Wesker were also going to be in the movie. However for whatever reason Sony said no this won’t do it won’t make since to new comers and fans won’t like it either and the fired him.

So instead we get this movie with no game characters and having really nothing to do with the games. Like I stated before it’s more like a side story to resident evil but they screw that up in the sequels and instead decided to pretty much retell the entire story. I do believe however that they did get the atmosphere of the games for the most part correct but like a lot of movies at the time its main character has more fighting abilities than anyone else and it only gets worse in the sequels.

There are however quite a few references to the game. In the first game the mansion does have a lab under it although its not called the hive and the train they use is the same one form the game. There’s crows which are enemies form the games although the zombie versions don’t appear to the final movie. The statue that Alice finds is one form a puzzle in the first game and the mansion itself is the mansion from the first game.

A lot of the references in the movie lead you to believe that this happens before the first game and kind of sets it up to run as a side story and that would have been great resident evil monsters with an original story no problem but again they screw it all up in the sequels. The acting for the most part is pretty decent and I like Mila Jovovich as Alice. There is a good amount of gore and as zombie movies go it’s not bad.

What really hurts this movie is the fact they called in resident evil. We get to see a cg version of the licker a few times and that was pretty cool. The other thing that made it from the games is the countdown. In a lot of the games you must kill a final boss while escaping from somewhere while a timer counts down and in the movie they have to do just that with the mutated licker playing the part of the final boss.

Overall I would give the movie 6 out of 10 green herb plants. As a movie by itself it’s pretty good the acting is good and the action is good but as a resident evil movie it fails.

The acting gets 8 out of 10. Again no real complaints here but nothing worth of a 10

The plot gets 4 out of 10. There us a lot of references to the games and some things that make it seem like its running concurrent but it fails to include any major characters.

The content gets 3 out of 10. The virus’s name is right, there are zombies and the locations are there but all the characters are original and there’s really nothing else.

Ok well that’s it next up is the second tomb raider movie then dun dun dun (dramatic reverb) house of the dead the first Uwe Boll movie how bad is it actually we will find out.