Resident Evil (2002) Review

https://youtu.be/kEutwdia8n0?is=6r-rXgOEFEFOXiKG

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When the world is against you, you’re gonna have to fend for yourself because you won’t always have help at your convenience.


PLOT


Inspired by the best selling Capcom video game franchise created by Shinji Mikami & Tokuro Fujiwara, Resident Evil takes place in the fictional Raccoon City where Umbrella Corporation’s genetic research facility, The Hive, suffers contamination when an engineered virus is loose. The Hive’s artificial intelligence, the Red Queen (Michaela Dicker), kills every employee inside to prevent it leaking outside. Three people wake up suffering from amnesia following the outbreak, Alice, Spence and Matt Addison, who claims to have transferred to Raccoon PD. They all get picked up by commandos led by James Shade aka One who explains to them that Alice & Spence were employees of Umbrella and that they were previously tasked to protect the Hive’s secret entrance under the pretense of being married. They’re going to the Hive now to figure out what caused the outbreak. Before they can get any further, One would die via laser grid orchestrated by Red Queen, along with three of his men. Luckily, fellow merc Chad Kaplan is able to disable the grid in order the others to progress. Doing this would open all the doors and unleash all the zombified staff and various creatures that came from the virus’ experimentation. When the horde of infected attack, merc JD Salinas (Pasquale Aleardi) gets killed while the others separate. At that moment, Matt takes keys from another merc, Rain Ocampo, to free himself. As the journey progresses, Alice starts remembering she and Matt were environmental activists that were against Umbrella. As Matt finds his infected sister Lisa (Heike Makatsch), Alice would also remember Lisa was part of the plan to infiltrate the Hive and smuggle evidence to use against the Corporation; Alice was her contact but doesn’t bare to tell Matt of it. When teaching Red Queen’s chamber, the commandos realize they only got an hour before they’re locked in for good. Kaplan is able to activate the AI long enough to find an exit and rig a remote shutdown to ensure cooperation. When trying to escape through maintenance tunnels, an infected JD bites Rain before she can shoot him off. As Kaplan gets separated after getting bitten by another infected, the last thing Alice would remember is there is an anti virus in one of the labs, but doesn’t find it. Spence would then start remembering he was the one who purposefully unleashed the virus as a thief who hid both virus and anti virus at a Alexi-5000 train owned by Umbrella. As he tries leaving the remaining group for dead with the anti virus for himself, he ultimately gets killed by another infected. Red Queen offers to spare them if Rain is killed before turning, but Kaplan causes a power outage before they can decide. When reaching the train, Alice finds the anti virus and shoots a reanimated Spence before boarding. As she injects the anti virus to Rain and Kaplan, the latter gets quickly killed by another creature that claws through the train. Alice shoots down the monster whereas Matt who got clawed is able to shoot Rain as she fully turns, revealing the anti virus to not work. When returning to the mansion Alice woke up in, she and Matt get separated by Umbrella scientists that plan to use the latter for their ‘Nemesis’ program. Some time later, the Hive is reopened and Alice wakes up at Raccoon City Hospital. The film would end with her leaving an examination table and arming herself outside the city now in ruins.


THOUGHTS


If the 90s were proving anything, we needed to keep our expectations low when it came to adapting video games because the dedication wasn’t there yet in more ways than one. Paul WS Anderson was definitely trying his best when directing Mortal Kombat, but that didn’t mean he needed to take over this franchise for the next decade. However you feel with the following sequels he’d be involved with, I wouldn’t straight up call this first try the worst thing ever since it knew it was gonna be different from what fans were familiar with, as in not having any of the actual characters of the game until the sequels. Like it’s one thing to balance bringing in fans and audiences together, but this wasn’t really worth the gamble by Anderson who also wrote the script. Even when there is a beginning and an end, it sometimes feels like there is no true consistency as it takes too long to figure out who’s in the right or wrong. Apart from the VFX being outdated on the ‘Lickers’ creatures, the editing is decent enough to make the following action believable and the set pieces are well made to try capturing the whole suspense of the Hive. While most characters come off one dimensional, they make enough believability in wanting to wonder how far they’re gonna go to survive, hence being a narrative on how far human nature can take one another in terms of greed or selflessness. Actress Milla Jovovich, who actually started a relationship with Anderson after this movie’s release to the point of marriage by 2009, became the face of this franchise starting here as the original lead Alice who did not originate from the games, as do the rest of the cast. In this particular setting, I think she stands out so well because she’s the kind of protagonist that slowly turns her vulnerability into a strength. She doesn’t understand everything from the start after a brief memory loss, but she quickly adapts the moment things worsen. I mean she’s pretty much badass instantly when she’s throwing roundhouse kicks to the monsters back to back before going for a gun. She even sticks to the moral to look out for everyone. She didn’t even know Rain that long, but she respected her enough to try saving her because she knew someone so tough as expected when portrayed by Michelle Rodriguez, does deserve a chance to keep fighting. Since she got bit twice, it made sense why the anti virus didn’t work in time. The similar thing can be said with Martin Crews as Kaplan since he had his own resilience to the very end. I was actually most stunned to see One get killed first because Colin Salmon was so commanding as a leader that he’d last the longest. With such a swerve, I knew things were gonna be unpredictable. At first, you would want to root for Spence because he suffers the same predicament as Alice until he remembers his bad intentions he had in mind and quickly gets his comeuppance. James Purefoy really pulled it off in giving us second thoughts on the character until the truth is out. If anyone would be a bigger victim than Alice however, it has to be Matt. Like her, he wanted to take down Umbrella as strategically possible and Eric Mabius was able to embrace how determined the character was at overthrowing pure evil only for him to become cursed to it just when it seemed he was gonna get the last laugh. Whatever the ‘Nemesis’ program is, it definitely ain’t good and Alice is gonna have to put up with it come the next movie. What makes this movie very average is the fact a lot of things don’t make much sense and you pick up on it very fast. Like the rooms in the Hive aren’t really sealed if the virus can get through the vents. What can be more bothering than that? I’ll give it to a continuity error where one guy’s coffee stain on shirt disappears between takes. Even the infected chase the protagonists one by one rather sprint together which would’ve overwhelmed them. If these zombies are supposed to be killing machines, they shouldn’t really take so long to go for the kill. They don’t even rush after Rain when she drops her gun and it’s really weird. I can say Matt’s pretty lucky to get the keys from a tight space, but then I scratch my head on Rain choosing to give Kaplan a hard time with letting more infected come their way on accident. It ain’t his fault at all because he could t have predicted that. And lastly, if Umbrella didn’t want Alice to escape, they should’ve bettered their security personnel rather than rely on locking the doors. If you can try to ignore these things, then I can think you’ll have a standard good time. In short, 2002’s Resident Evil is the beginning of something you’re gonna love or hate for the rest of your life when it comes to your preference in terms of blockbusters. Whether or not you’re a gamer, I hope you find some amount of being entertained by this sci fi adventure flick.