Guts and...

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2002)

Over one year passed since I first heard that the movie was being made and I've been waiting for it since then. Time passed once again after it was premiered, but I still didn't get to see it...until this oh-so happy day. And what do I have to say? 'twas a satisfactory experience. Terror of the undead is a pretty usual theme for horror movies. You've got Romero's groundbreaking Night, Day and Yawn...sorry, I meant Dawn. This, though, is the first horror movie that started from a game, the popular Resident Evil series. It seems to be a profitable deal to "inspire" yourself from games, but there is this other thing too. What do Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy and Resident Evil actually point out? The same that a number after a movie does: lack of imagination. A bit more 'obsessive' in the gaming world, but still very present in the cinematic affair as well. I am not against these "inspired" movies. As long as they're good, that is. Resident Evil, directed by Paul Anderson, nearly throws up the following storyline: In a top-secret underground facility a deadly (and terribly contaminating) virus is set free. The computer (Red Queen) closes all exists to the outside world, and all the employees (who till recently had worked for the Umbrella Corporation) are killed. But, actually, as you may imagine, they are not quite...dead.
Umbrella sends a special agents team to clear up the mess, and set things as straight as possible. This team will actually be shattered in the underground laboratory by what they find there. The stench of death everywhere. Milla Jovovich is the leading actress in the movie - solid reason for avid movie goers to see this one- and she plays the role of a security agent, who works for Umbrella. Incidentally, she suffers a memory loss after she inhales a protection gas released by the Red Queen. We get to find out in the movie who she really is and what she was going to do.
Michelle Rodriguez, Mr. Purefoy & company all get together to do their acting tricks and they do them as well as they could've given the film. Now, as all fans of the RE series will say, this film totally sucked. I nearly subscribe. Only 'nearly' because it wasn't the excremental waste the second movie is (I was so naive in thinking it couldn't get any worse). Also, had there not been some very sloppy distribution of zombie actors and had Anderson at least been careful enough to do the simple things right, technically and chronologically speaking, then RE could've stood a chance. All Anderson does is fit in some cool moves, some cool zombie dogs, while leaving the rest of the film to rot.
I consider his attitude extremely disgusting: why make a movie called Resident Evil if you don't want it to have anything to do with the game? (yeah, I know, money...it's meant to be rhetorical) It's as simple as this: the film doesn't do justice to the games. So even if RE can be a reasonably satisfactory sit-through, I am absolutely against what Anderson has done to the franchise, which simply wasn't his to ruin.