Could Have Been So Much More

Rating: Null/10 (30 May 2004)

Yes, it could have been so much more, but Hollywood went for the bucks and not the bang in catering this movie to the masses. Face it, "28 Days Later" and the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" were excellently-written and acted movies, but didn't do well at the box office. Producer and director Paul W.S. Anderson went for style over substance in "Resident Evil," having learned his lesson when he did substance first in "Event Horizon," which flopped at the box office.
In this movie, based on the popular series of video games that parents wanted slapped with user ratings, a deadly virus is unleashed at a super secret underground corporate facility. The Red Queen, the Artificial Intelligence that controls the facility, called the Hive, as well as monitors the 500 workers living inside, cold-bloodedly, but logically kills everyone and seals off the place to prevent the spread of the virus.
The Hive is the brainchild of the Umbrella Corporation, an evil worldwide conglomerate that makes The Company from the "Alien" movies seem tame by comparison. Unfortunately, Anderson makes Umbrella a clichéd, stereotypical villain.
We next see the main characters. Milla Jovovich, the butt-kicking universe saver from "The Fifth Element," plays Alice and wakes up half naked (as usual) in a shower. She can't remember anything and we learn that the Red Queen's defenses go outside the hive and into Alice's house which guards the entrance to the Hive. Alice is hit with nerve gas. We also meet Matt, a local police detective, played by Eric Mabius. He might be more than he seems, although this plot point is also wasted.
Soon, commandos from Umbrella crash the place. Among them are Rain, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who won acting accolades in "Girl Fight," has been stuck in two-dimensional roles since then, ranging from the girl with the bad attitude in "Blue Wave" to the cop with a chip on her shoulder in "SWAT." Here, she's pretty much the same and we never really get to care anything about her. The only really interesting character here is One, the commando leader, played by Colin Salmon ("Prime Suspect," "The World Is Not Enough," "Tomorrow Never Dies," "Die Another Day"). But, being in charge and being black in a sci-fi film, it's not a spoiler to say his time is up pretty quick.
The group, including a manacled Matt, descends into the Hive and takes a small train to the main facility. Aboard, they find Chad, played by Martin Crewes. He's Alice's "husband" and another Umbrella operative who protects the Hive. He's also suffering memory loss from nerve gas exposure. Unfortunately, whereas Alice slowly regains her memory, he won't remember until a certain plot twist late in the film, which makes it so obvious that the whole subplot is unnecessary.
I won't recount the movie scene by scene, but Anderson's direction pretty much kills the suspense. Even the emergence of a creature called The Licker (sounds perverted, doesn't it?) doesn't add any scares or suspense. Hollywood typically adds things like The Licker and shows them so far in advance as to cancel their surprise, instead relying on lots of gore. Obviously, The Licker is CGI-created but its movements are stiff and disjointed making it seem like it was a plot twist thought of at the last second and belatedly laid out over the finished product.
And speaking of gore, here's where the film really bogs down. The virus re-animates the dead, but the actors playing the zombies are so stiff you'd think they really had rigor mortis. Also, they supposedly need to feed, but they rarely feed. They bite and draw some blood, but that's about it. It's like those shark specials on Discovery where they say sharks bite divers then back off when they realize they're not seals. The zombies bite a little, then either back off or get punched out. They're not scary at all and the big gun battles with them are rather lackluster.
Pretty soon, the whole film degenerates into the standard action/horror film cliché. A few people trapped in a remote location, trying to escape while being picked off one by one. And if the one doing the picking off was anything but The Licker, it might have been okay. But, it is The Licker and it ends up being The Lacker.
The movie does have some fine points, though. The scene near the beginning with the woman in the flooded lab and the one with some of the security commandos stuck in the Red Queen's chamber with its lethal laser beam are tense. Also, don't miss the scene when the heroine faces off against some obviously p*ssed off hell hounds that used to be Doberman pinschers. Oh and the ending is a trip. You can see it coming a mile away and you can tell it's a setup for a sequel, but it's jarring nonetheless.
Also, British child actress Michaela Dicker is marvelous as the Red Queen. She outdoes everyone else except for Colin Salmon.
Overall, the movie wasn't as bad as most of the reviewers make it out to be. However, even those unfamiliar with the video game, will see that there could have been so much more to the movie and that, ultimately, is what makes it a disappointment.