The Game on Celluloid

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2002)

Wow, a film about a game made by people who actually played the RE games. Paul Anderson made an intelligent move by insisting everyone in his cast and crew to either play the game or watch videos of people playing the game to get a feel for what he wanted to capture. Not to mention the main members of the cast were RE fanatics, at last a game-to-film that keeps very consistent and has the same feel of the game itself.
But Resident Evil wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination so some of the flaws carried over. For instance, a creature that debuted in RE2--'the licker' who did have a classic introduction, but the damn thing itself was a lousy rip-off of a much more intimidating beast known as 'the hunter'. But the hunter's appearance was far less impressive, which usually left most gamers underestimating the thing. Two seconds later you're restarting your game, vowing not to let another hunter breath. The last boss was nothing compared to two hunters; no questions asked.
Also Resident Evil's trademark cheesy lines, a few outrageous scenes (who kicks a dog in the mouth and sends it through a window, rendering it unconscious?) But hey, you expect a certain level of cheese with horror . .. I mean hell, every Friday the 13th is 100% cheesy and it's one of the stronger series in terms of fanbase (as much as I hate to admit that.)
Paul Anderson brings the claustrophobic, creepy, yet high tech atmosphere he provided Event Horizon with into Resident Evil. Once again using a great deal of subtleties until the last half of the film. As he said in the commentary, `This is a movie about Resident Evil, you know you're going to see zombies so you don't have to show them up front and right away.' Which better builds the tension, because the whole time we don't see the Zombies, we know they're somewhere, and we know they're coming.
Alfred Hitchcock is quoted as saying, `A bomb under the table goes off-that's surprise. A bomb under the table, and it doesn't go off-that's suspense.' One you can come back to, and still get a similar feeling. The other, once you know it's there it leaves you empty ever after.
Marco Beltrami and Marylyn Manson both surprised me by providing a tolerable score. Beltrami breaks from his typical style, which I don't care for, to capture the sound and feel of the RE games. Not a bad score to listen to while watching.