Zombie film: Hollywood Version

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2002)

"Resident Evil" was, originally a series of really enjoyable video games. With a dark, creepy atmosphere that could make you jump out of your seat, it created a world in which you could easily go into. It also had the reputation of being a very graphic and gory game. Another great element of the games was the plot; you had to resolve many puzzles, and your intelligence was required to play.
The same things are not all true in "Resident Evil", the film.

"Resident Evil" tells the story of a woman who had been rescued from a virus infested research center. She awakens later on, she has forgotten everything. After that, a military team takes her and brings her back in the research facility, when the effects of the virus are no longer contagious. They find that the release of the deadly virus was a conspiracy. But there are many problems on their way; some almost invincible zombies, a main system (which takes the aspect of a little girl) that wants to kill every intruder, and a security system that turns against them.
In the case of "Resident Evil", it's not the movie itself that is so bad, it's all those little things that are messed up, without ruining completely the quality of the movie. If you've seen "Deep Blue Sea" and liked it, then you'll love Resident Evil. As much as "Deep Blue Sea" was a very simple and common model of what a suspense movie turns out to be in Hollywood, "Resident Evil" is another clone of that model. What I mean by that is the presence of the similar elements, which mostly are: A good-looking girl, a bunch of men that get killed one by one, a spectacular enemy, some high-tech facilities and equipment, a very simple scenario, some violence (not graphic enough to gross out the average teenager, which is 80% of their target audience, but not mild enough to be rated PG-13), and some cool looking action sequences. It's a formula that works many times, and they chose it for a movie that promised so much, but did not deliver what the real "Resident Evil" fans like.
A movie that could have been so much more...I could easily criticize the plot, or the actors, but you know how it is, and we all know how it is. It's just normal, common, average...it has nothing special...it is an excuse to make a movie. I'll still have to admit that Milla Jovovich is not only a beautiful woman, but she's also a pretty good actress. Even though her role in "Resident Evil" did not require a lot of talent, she's still able, sometimes, to make us share the shivers she plays on the screen.

The points where I would focus a little more are two very important elements in the "Resident Evil" video games. Like I said before, originally, these games were moody and gory. Two major deceptions here. The gore...ARGH! I just can't take it, it's made by computer! This is a message to all directors: If you want to put any gore in your films, do it the old fashioned way. Digital blood looks fake, digital monsters look fake...Even with some very cheap gore/creature effects, you can do a better job than the one they did in "Resident Evil"...the same thing is true in Blade...Every single mutilation in "Resident Evil" was made in CGI, and every single one of them really looks bad. (Spoilers) There's a part where more than half a dozen soldiers are cut in pieces by lasers (and it really deceived me to see that three quarters of the human characters die in two minutes...human characters were the only hope of seeing a gore scene in this film, because the zombies in this film have coagulated blood, which is, for sure, realistic and intelligent, but absolutely not satisfying for the gore fans) and some heads are cut off, some bodies are cut in cubes. But every darn death looks so fake! Even in the excellent low-budget Canadian movie "Cube", the effect with the guy that gets sliced into dices is really, really, really, really, a thousand times better than all of "Resident Evil"'s reunited gore moments. I'm sick of CGI gore...and all CGI made movies...this is removing all the human aspects of movies...people are amazed to see things that were made with computers and almost look real...Yeah, they almost look real, but if they were done like before, they would look even more real! Well, what is the point of being impressed with things that could be a lot more simple and look better if they were done like before...It's not because technology exists that films should overuse it...Technology is a tool, and many film makers don't understand it.

The other aspect, the mood, is not delivered the same way...it's more like a futuristic atmosphere, with a certain lack of terror, a very "Blockbuster" atmosphere, with nothing really eerie. The music is not bad, but it certainly is not as creepy as the one in the games. The zombies are not scary at all, and the other "creatures" are plain laughable.

They kept some elements from the games, and that's a good thing. The city is still "Raccoon City", the train really is identical to the one in the game of "Resident Evil 2", (Spoilers) the city in the end really seems to be an image taken from the game, it's the Umbrella Corporation, etc. But, talking about that ending, which is actually pretty good, I would have seen the whole movie setting in the Raccoon City streets, like we do in the beginning of "Resident Evil 2" (the game).
Overall, I'd say that "Resident Evil" really is a disappointment, especially if you were a big fan of the games, but for those who haven't heard of the games and saw the movie and thought it was good, you should definitely check these games out! "Resident Evil", the movie, is a very common piece of entertainment, that, without being bad, simply offers some acceptable entertainment, some mild thrills, and an easy and agreeable night at the theater. It really is nothing impressive, but it's very ordinary recipe of Hollywood thriller that puts itself under a name that has acquired reputation with the years. Not that bad, but nothing great either.

I give it 5/10.