Resident Evil: Atrocious

Rating: Null/10 (12 October 2004)

The first film received a very mixed reception on release. People either loved it totally, or despised it, and the criticism levied towards the director (Paul WS Anderson) was, to be truthful, very harsh. I kinda liked it. As a fan of the games and also one of the few fans of Anderson himself, I enjoyed it from start to finish. The ending of the film hinted at the plot for the sequel, and I couldn't wait. Well, the wait is over. The film begins with a quick recap of event so far, telling us that Umbrella were developing genetic and viral weapons in their underground labs beneath Racoon C0ity, but something went wrong. The T Virus was released and the dead began to rise from the dead. Into this walked Alice, and ex-employee of Umbrella, who at the end of the first film awoke to find the whole of Racoon City had been infected. There begins Apocalypse! Alice has been experimented on to give her enhanced abilities, and soon finds herself leading a rag-tag bunch of survivors (including Jill Valentine, one of the most popular characters in the game) to rescue the daughter of Charles Ashford, the creator of the virus. At the same time the Nemesis experiment is released to stop her. Cue action scene after action scene, and a film that just plods along without offering any tension or emotion at all.
I was disappointed with the film, not through the story (the concept and script is well woven by Anderson), but through the acting and direction, oh and the effects. This is a film with more ambition than the budget can allow! It is nice to see that the studio is an equal opportunities employer, but having epileptics manning the camera is a tad too much! The term used by Empire this month is 'F**king the Frame' and is a term that defines it perfectly! The camera shakes so much that keeping up with the action is tricky at the best of times, and tension is destroyed. Within the first few minutes a jerky, blurred shot is used to show lumbering zombies and alarm bells rang in my head! 'Are they just covering up some ropey effects and make-up?' The answer is yes, and the shots of the 'big bad' Nemesis attain! Why could they not get a better make-up and effects team! Surely the people who worked on Buffy and Angel were availableeven their effects were better than this 'rubber mask' effect! The overall effect is similar to that other terrible 'big bad' creation, the Spinosaurus in JP3.
The acting, aside from Jovovich, is terrible! Maybe it was paying homage to the games where the voice acting is diabolical, or maybe the budget just wouldn't allow them to hire anyone with any talent! If it was intended as homagewell it was a terrible idea as you just can't care for the characters. So, the blame for this very average waste of 1 ½ hours can't be levied at Anderson. He wrote a decent story. The problems here can mainly be put down to the director this time, first timer Christopher Witt, who fails to get any decent results from his cast, and can't really convey a scene well.
Overall a film with far too much ambition! Yes, it would be tricky to convey a city in chaos without having a lot of action, but perhaps a bit of tension wouldn't go amiss! Look at Alienslots of beasts attacking, but only a few key action points. Fans will love looking for the links to the games, but that's about it. Go play the games instead!