Review of Resident Evil (2002) by Christian O — 12 Oct 2013

"Resident Evil" is an attempt to blend some action and some horror but it sure didn't work very well in the end. It's another one of those "Girls with Guns" movies that came out in the 2000's, some of them had their charm but mostly their appeal was in seeing the sexy starlets sliding into some tight leather suits and blowing away legions of bad guys. Between Tomb Raider (2001), Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), Underworld (2003), Catwoman (2004), Aeon Flux (2005), Bloodrayne (2005), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Ultraviolet (2006), Resident Evil is definitely one of the more memorable entries (and the one with the stupidest set of sequel titles ever) but as a first film in a long series, is it anything special? Here's the story: Underneath Raccoon City exists a genetic research facility named the Hive, run by the Umbrella Corporation. It isn't spelt out in the film that the company is evil, but when your prime sources of income are from genetic research, biological warfare and breeding ugly mutants in an underground hall of secrets, well who do you think you're fooling? One day, a thief steals a sample of a weapons-grade infection named the T-Virus and unleashes it unto the Hive before escaping. The facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen seals the building and kills everyone inside. Our main character is Alice (Milla Jovovich) who wakes a few hours after the incident in a strange building with no memories of who she is when a group of commandos burst in. They capture her and the other occupant of the house and tell the two that they need their help to go into the Hive and take down the Red Queen. Once inside though, they find out that a murderous artificial intelligence is the least of their worries because they have to ward off legions of zombified scientists, some scary-looking mutated Dobermans and some nasty mutants too. Plus there's that whole business of the thief coming in and stealing the T-Virus (a possible traitor amongst the group?) and the whole amnesia thing going on. Even if the team manages to survive long enough to get out of the building, can they trust each other?

This is the kind of movie that really starts to fall apart if you apply even the tiniest bit of logic to it. While watching the movie I was really confused as to why the artificial intelligence of the building was programmed to not only dispose of anyone infected with the T-Virus but also murder them in bizarre ways. This holographic projection apparently likes to decapitate, dismember and dice anyone it perceives as a threat to itself even when it has the ability to simply release a lethal gas and dispose of the occupants of the hive that way. I realize that Umbrella is an evil corporation, but was it in their list of demands when building their custom security system for the computer A.I. to appear as an evil little British girl with creepy eyes? Luckily for the Red Queen, the team sent in to take it down also happen to be the most trusting team of commandos ever. Moving on from that, I'll admit that there are some interesting deaths and action sequences in the movie. Milla Jovovich is more than capable as a physical actress and Michelle Rodriguez as Rain does a good job as well. The issue I have is that most of the action segments are inserted in not because they add to the story; they're put in there because the director thought it would be cool to look at. There are many scenes where characters should get torn apart or eaten alive by zombies but they don't. Realistically that's what would happen because they are arms dead in a pile of swarming undead scientists with no protection whatsoever if it isn't that specific character's time to go though, they come out just fine. A big problem with the movie and a further example of this movie doing things without thinking logically is the character of Alice. Because she has amnesia she basically has no personality whatsoever. More than that though, throughout the film her security-system induced amnesia starts to wear off meaning she is instinctively able to react to threats with martial arts or incredibly marksmanship and is slowly able to piece together who is trustworthy and who isn't in the team. That sounds fine in concept, but in practice this is just a way for the story to pull whatever elements are necessary for the plot out of thin air. Oh no! We're locked in a room! Wait, Alice knows how to pick locks! Oh no! We're dying from the T-Virus! Wait, Alice suddenly remembers that there's an antidote available somewhere! You get the idea.

There isn't much drama, tension or excitement throughout the movie because you can basically predict who is going to make it out alive and who isn't very easily and you simply don't care about the characters. From the second you see Rain you know her character is going to be a one-note uncooperative bitch to counter our protagonist. You figure out quickly that because she's unlikeable she's going to bring in that emotional tension to the team, meaning she is going to stick around for a long time. The movie is very rarely scary and because the characters act really stupidly (if shooting someone fifty times in the torso didn't work the first time, what makes you think it would work the second time around? And would it kill you not to aim at the surprisingly explosive mutant containment cages?) It gets tedious quickly. There are some points that do show promise, like when Alice is first confronted with the zombified dogs but that segment ends really quickly and has no impact on the plot whatsoever. As a first chapter in a series, it's possible that in time the movie will become more tolerable because you'll see elements extracted here and there and then extrapolated to create big payoffs later but as is, this is an incredibly mediocre action film. I can't even really recommend it for fans of zombie films or as a dumb action movie because the story is so sloppy. It's a big disappointment. (Theatrical version on Dvd, September 20, 2013).