Sad for a game fan

Rating: 3/10 (23 September 2007)

I don't know where or how to begin because it's really tough for me, as a game fan, to describe what I felt when I saw this movie for the first time.
First of all, I played Resident Evil for so many times that I can't count. All first 3 episodes are one of my favorite games and my favorite kind of genre.
The introduction of the first game is quite exciting, showing us all the cinematic importance of the game with a man stepping into a corridor, being attacked by something unknown and the name "RESIDENTE EVIL" appearing in the screen in red blood. Then, the game opening shows how everything started. Of course the actors were a lot like amateurs but it was innovative and frightening for a game those disturbing scenes till the game finally starts into a hall in an anywhere mansion. The main characters of the game were Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers. This brief description of the game is just to make clear how the movie starts as a completely mess.
I think that, to say something about this movie, we have to say if from 2 different point of views: as a game player and as a non game player.
As a game player I couldn't understand why they have changed all the original plot of the game. None of the original characters was there and all the interesting facts of the game have been totally ignored. All of the original game characters had different and well defined personalities and each one of them have its importance during the game story, something that do not happen in the movie for the fact that Alice is the main character and everything surrounds her. The cinematic importance of the game has been completely forgotten in the movie and all the frightening atmosphere of the game was totally lost. For a first impression, I liked the fact of Milla Jovovich as the main character just for the fact that she's not a box office name but she's an action star and a name needed for the movie's success, but she is an awful actress. Her face is always the same from the beginning to the end in each movie she's cast, with no exception. But what I keep asking myself is: "Why Alice as the main character? Why all that stuffs about a girl suffering from amnesia, The Red Queen and The Hive, when we already had an interesting plot from the original game?".
The game plot involve a group of special agents that are lost into somewhere full of all kind of monsters that, in fact, are zombies from a genetic experience accident by a part of the Umbrella Co. that's hidden under a mansion for its illegal studies content. This is also an interesting plot for an action movie because it's simple, original, understandable and full of action (that's what action movies is all about). And why did they had to make something so complex in the worst way? But the worst thing is that they did something so strangely complex that's almost impossible to insert the original characters during the movie or in its sequels. So, as a game player this is an awful adaptation.
As a non game player I could find the movie quite funny. The movie starts well giving a detailed explanation about the happenings over the Umbrella Co. until the virus takes control of everything. The zombies are interesting because jumps over your eyes that all zombies are people not dressed well with dirty make up. That thing about Milla recovering from an amnesia all, discovering her fighting techniques under pressure situations are so def that is hugely laughable. It's laughable because it's a common situation in the history of action movies and very few of them made it quite well as The Bourne Trilogy. It's also laughable because it's not in a movie called Resident Evil that that situation would be taken seriously from the writers and the audience. Milla Jovovich, as said before, is one of the worst famous actress of history and I can't understand why people like her so much as she isn't an actress because she's never acting. She's always looking with the same way, she's always with her mouth half-open when she's amazed, frighten, happy, sad... and she's always shaking her jaw when she has something quite important to say as: "you'll die!" I liked some scenes that I don't remember by now because they were too short. Lot of people hated the final scene, claiming that it was a scene for a predictable sequel, but I liked it a lot and I think that it's the kind of impressive scene I was waiting for during entire movie and it's the first time when you can finally realize the complete chaos and destruction that Umbrella Corporation caused and how it should be if something like that happened in real life. So, as a non game player I had an enjoyable time watching that movie but it could be a lot better.
That's sad. The movie suffers from improvement failures over the potentials of the game, and the game (and also the fans) suffers under this awful adaptation.