That's it? Are you sure you finished it?

Rating: Null/10 (27 March 2002)

Just when I'm getting immersed in the story, the movie is over! "Resident Evil" easily holds the title for the best "video game movie" (which isn't hard to do). Apparently, Paul Anderson didn't ignore what video game fans didn't like about the movie version of "Mortal Kombat". But he basically took a crappy script for RE and modified it to be coherent with the video game storyline. He did a decent job, but RE still can only be considered "good, for a video game movie". One negative aspect is that many of the plot elements that were developed over the span of four video games (over 12 hours of game time) are quickly introduced in the movie. The buildup becomes too redundant for RE fans, and too confusing and slow for newcomers. Alice, the main character, is never developed enough for us to really have any reason to care about her. There are glimpses about who she is that build interest, but are not explored enough. In the games, the characters always still had a mystery that was not explained at the end, but the character was developed enough that the player felt they knew the character. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with the movie. The music also wasn't as effective as the music in the games (especially RE2).
On the plus side, the movie does do some things the games never did. The movie made me more truly feel the terror of seeing a person eaten alive by zombies (this is a great zombie flick). The movie also has many references to the games, and begins to explain some parts of the existing plot. This is the first video game movie that at least looks like its makers have actually taken the time to play the video game. But the most exciting part is the end! Just when it's getting really good, it's over. It's like it's only Disc 1 of the movie. There had better be a sequel, or this movie will end up being just another "video game movie". As long as Capcom doesn't decide to contradict the storyline with future games, and the new script follows from this movie, the sequel will make this movie better, and it will be a sweet movie itself.