Resident Evil (Special Edition)
by Paul W.S. Anderson
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DVD details
Actor: Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes, Michelle Rodriguez, Milla JovovichDirector: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-07-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Resident Evil (Special Edition)
DVD Review: One big, giant "Meh" of a movie
Summary: 2 Stars
I hate all the reviewers and critics who say that "fans of the video game are going to love this movie." These critics normally aren't gamers or fans of the source material, so how can they be an adequate judge of the tastes of gamers? I'm a huge fan of the Resident Evil game franchise, the very person these critics believe that will enjoy the Resident Evil films. But I DESPISE these movies. And why, do you ask? Because they really aren't much like the games at all. Oh sure, there's a mansion, zombies, zombie dogs, a "Licker" creature, and the malignant Umbrella corporation. But aside from those aesthetical similarities, the film bears little resemblance to the games.
When preproduction of the first Resident Evil film began, the legendary George Romero, whose Dead franchise was a major inspiration for the Resident Evil games, was commissioned to write a script. His script shared many similarities to the game, such as the inclusion of characters like Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker. However, it also made changes to the story that game developers Capcom didn't like, and Romero was ultimately turned down. Instead, they hired Paul WS Anderson, director of Event Horizon and another video game movie, Mortal Kombat. His treatment was more like a prequel to the games, and this approach was more acceptable to Capcom's head honchos. Anderson's treatment was greenlit, and "Resident Evil: Ground Zero" went into production (the "Ground Zero" subtitle was abandoned after the events of September 11th).
The film begins in The Hive, a massive laboratory facility beneath Raccoon City. The mutagenic T-Virus is being tested in the labs, but someone releases the virus, infecting the hundreds of scientists within the facility. Sensing the outbreak, The Hive's security system, the artifically-intelligent Red Queen, locks down the facility and douses everyone in halon to further prevent their escape.
We switch to Alice (Milla Jovovich), who awakens in an empty mansion after passing out in the shower. Her collapse has has given her amnesia, a condition that becomes ever more frightening when a team of nameless Special Ops soldiers (see: fodder) employed by Umbrella storms the mansion. Turns out that the mansion serves as a secret entrance to The Hive, and the team has been sent to infiltrate The Hive and investigate its lockdown. The team directs Alice down into the bowels of the facility to assist with the task. Why they can't determine the nature of the lockdown from the outside is beyond me, since that would be a much more logical thing to do. And why can't they just trust the security system they created and leave The Hive locked down, rather than endangering the lives of an entire Special Ops team and potentially the lives of everyone on the outside by reopening the Hive? But as you're going to find out while watching the Resident Evil films, logic does not exist in this dojo.
Anyway, Alice and the team discover that the T-Virus has turned everyone in The Hive into flesh-eating zombies, and they must get out of the facility before it is sealed up permanently. But seeing the risk of letting them leave, the Red Queen isn't going to make it easy for them.
The Resident Evil games excel at creating a dark, suspenseful atmosphere, where you don't know what horrors are literally waiting around the corner. The main characters are given little ammunition to fend off the hordes of zombies and creatures salivating for their flesh, perpetuating a sense of doom and dread since the player must be methodical and conservative with their weapons. Writer/director Anderson attempts to establish a suspenseful mood by not even introducing the zombies until about halfway through the film. But sadly, all attepted suspense is lost once the flesheaters appear and the Covert Ops team whip out their big machine guns and blast away at them. The film becomes less about mood and scares and more about action and gunfire.
The emphasis on action increases once Alice begins regaining her memory, suddenly remembering that she is a martial arts expert who can run along walls, do flying kicks, and break necks with her thighs. It feels like her sparring partner was Trinity in The Matrix.
In fact, the film cribs a lot of elements from The Matrix Bargain Bin, such as references to Alice in Wonderland (Alice, the Red Queen, the entrance to The Hive is a mirror), wire-fu, slow-motion bullets, and a lead character who suddenly discovers that they have incredible abilities. The film also seems to "borrow" elements from other genre films like Cube and Day of the Dead, though it's hard to criticize the game for using elements of Romero's zombie films since the games themselves are inspired by them.
The film also possess a chugging, screeching metal/electronica score composed by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson. No, I'm not kidding. Shock rocker Marilyn Manson assisted in the creation of the film's score. It's actually quite good, even if the combination of the crunching electronic guitars, pounding drum machines, and heavy gunfire could give you a headache by the end of the film.
This film is "meh". It isn't great, it isn't good, it isn't god-awful. It's quite derivative of other films it shouldn't be, and it lacks the elements that make the game so great. The acting is...well...there. It's also hard to care about characters who don't even have names. The only reason we know that Milla Jovovich's character is named Alice is because it's in the end credits. Characters are almost never addressed by their names during the film. So you feel almost completely indifferent when half the cast is killed off fairly early in the film. They all feel like nameless, faceless fodder, as bad as any cast of horny teens in any random 80's slasher film.
The highlights? The score and the rather humorous audio commentary of Anderson, Jovovich, producer Jeremy Bolt, and castmate Michelle Rodriguez. Jovovich sounds like she's in full "valley girl" mode here, and they joke about everything from Milla's gas (a little T.M.I. if you ask me), their time spent in a German nightclub (the film was shot mostly in Berlin), and cast member Eric Mabius' affinity for yogurt. But it says a lot about a film when one of the major highlights of the film is its audio commentary. After all, you don't watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 because the movies they're riffing on are great.
Description of Resident Evil (Special Edition)
Marilyn Manson worked on the soundtrack, so it's no surprise that Resident Evil is best enjoyed by headbangers, goth guys, and PlayStation junkies. Like the interactive game it's based on, this horror hybrid pits a small band of SWAT-like commandos (including Milla Jovovich and Girlfight's Michelle Rodriguez) against a ravenous hoard of zombies, resulting in a gorefest that only sociopaths could love. The tenacious heroes are trapped inside the Hive--an underground complex where an evil corporation conducts illegal research with a deadly virus--and the zombies (reanimated corpses of sacrificed employees) are fodder for endless rounds of gunfire. It's utter nonsense (not unlike director Paul W.S. Anderson's previous Event Horizon), so your best defense is to wallow in it or avoid this trash altogether. A few cool sequences are borrowed from better films (that slice-and-dice laser is cribbed from the 1998 Canadian shocker Cube), but if you're in the mood for heavy-metal carnage, this movie's for you. --Jeff ShannonBestsellers in DVD
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