Movie Details:
Series – Resident Evil #1
Director – Paul WS Anderson
Release – 2002
Rating – R
Time – 1hr 40min
My Thoughts:
This movie, and the whole franchise in fact, is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work for me. Live action tie-ins to video games usually leave me apathetic at best to downright cold at worst. Now, my only knowledge about the Resident Evil franchise is what I garnered reading the horrible game tie-in books in 2011 (Umbrella Conspiracy, Zero Hour, Caliban Cove). I’ve never played the games but I have watched the movies multiple times and enjoyed them immensely, to the point where I bought a “Complete Collection” on bluray last year.
Resident Evil the movie is almost 25 years old and in some ways it shows. The scenes where it is “computer graphics” copying the style of the game is rough and uneven and not what you’d see today. Other than that though, I thought it holds up remarkably well.
I do have to say that you need to turn your brain off to truly enjoy these. This is a zombie action movie and you can pick it apart all day long. I suspect many of the roots of that come from the game itself but Hollywood does have a way of inserting its own stupidity into things, so I’m also blaming them. I’m not here to nit-pick though. But it is a fair warning. Turn your brain off and enjoy.
The music is spot on. You have a pulse pounding techno-something-metal whenever the action is about to ramp up or is happening. It is played a lot during times when the team is initially invading the Hive (the underground complex where everything is happening). It makes even simple scenes of the team running up/down stairs more engaging. But at the same time, it is not overused. I felt like whoever the musical director/choreographer was did a tremendous job of making the music add to the movie without overwhelming or distracting. I also really liked the theme music. Here is the opening theme and it is just plain creepy:
The progression of enemies is stepped just like in a video game. You start out with the Red Queen (the AI that is actually trying to keep the world safe from the T-Virus) and her defense mechanisms taking out like half the team. Four team members die in just one scene and I was a little disappointed it wasn’t spaced out more.
Then the zombies are introduced and the surviving members have to battle them, unsuccessfully at first as they don’t know that only a bullet to the head puts the zombies down permanently. Then Alice, the hero of the movie franchise, meets some doberman pinschers and whooowheee, they looked BAD! And one of the coolest looking scenes happens with that. She runs out of bullets and there is still one dog left and it leaps to attack her. She runs at a wall intersection and runs up one wall, pushes off it, bounces off the supporting wall and kicks the dog and breaks its neck. It is physically impossible but boy, it looked awesome!
Then the team meets the final Big Bad and it is some sort of humanoid mutating monster that is all exposed muscle and teeth and claws and a tongue like a whip. (I didn't use any of the actual scenes from the movie because they were all too dark, so you get this drawn version) It manages to kill off the remainder of the team and only Alice and some guy who was trying to save his sister survive. They make it out of the Hive just as the blast doors sealing it off come down.
Only for the two survivors to be medicalized by Umbrella scientists in bio-hazard suits. The guy has a t-virus infection that isn’t killing him and Alice is being kept under observation. The movie ends with her waking up and ripping out all her monitors and escaping the lab. She is in Racoon City and it is obvious the t-virus has escaped. She grabs a shot gun and that’s how the movie ends.
I am happy to own this movie and am so glad it has stood up to repeated viewings. This was a LOT more than I was expecting to write, which goes to show how much I liked it :-D I’ll also add that you shouldn’t expect this much wordage from me when I review the next 5 Resident Evil movies. So stock up on shotgun shells, sharpen your machetes and make sure your harley davidson motorcycle is fueled up, because we’ve got a lot of adventure left to get through!
Synopsis from Wikipedia:
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Underneath Raccoon City, a genetic research facility called the Hive is owned by the Umbrella Corporation. A thief steals the genetically engineered T-virus and contaminates the Hive with it. In response, the facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen, seals the Hive and kills everyone inside to prevent the virus from leaking into the outside world.
Alice wakes up in the bathroom of a deserted mansion, suffering amnesia. An unknown person tackles her as a group of commandos led by James Shade breaks in. Alice's attacker claims to be Matt Addison, who just transferred as a cop in Raccoon P.D. Alice and Matt are ordered to go down to the Hive with the group, where they find another amnesiac, Spence, hidden in their train. The commandos explain that everyone in the group except Matt is an employee of the Umbrella Corporation, and Alice and her partner Spence were assigned to guard the Hive's secret entrance beneath the mansion under the pretense of being married.
A laser defense system kills Shade and three more commandos outside the Red Queen's chamber. Despite the Red Queen's pleas for the group to leave, Kaplan disables it, causing the power to fail and all of the doors in the Hive to open. This releases the zombified staff and containment units holding Lickers, creatures created through experimentation with the T-virus. The horde attacks the group, and J.D. dies while the rest are separated. During that moment, Rain loses her keys and Matt, taking advantage of the chaos, sweeps the keys to escape his handcuffs. Alice starts regaining her memories while Matt finds his sister Lisa, who is one of the zombies. Alice saves him, and Matt explains that he and Lisa were environmental activists. Lisa infiltrated Umbrella to smuggle out the evidence of illegal experiments and shut Umbrella down. Alice remembers that she was Lisa's contact in the Hive but does not tell Matt. The survivors reunite at the Red Queen's chamber, where the commandos explain they have one hour before the Hive traps them inside automatically. Alice and Kaplan activate the Red Queen to find an exit; they rig a remote shutdown to ensure her cooperation.
As they escape through maintenance tunnels, zombies ambush them, and a reanimated J.D. bites Rain before she shoots him dead. They reach safety except Kaplan, who is bitten and separated from the group. Alice remembers that an anti-virus is in the lab, but they find it missing. Spence's memory returns, revealing he was the thief who stole and purposefully released the T-virus in the beginning; he hid both the T-virus and anti-virus on the train. Spence turns against the others but is bitten by a zombie before trapping the survivors in the lab. Spence retrieves the anti-virus but is killed by a Licker. The Red Queen offers to spare Alice and Matt if they kill Rain, who has been infected. A power outage occurs. Kaplan appears, having shut down the Red Queen to open the lab doors. The group heads to the train, where Alice retrieves the anti-virus and kills a reanimated Spence.
On the train, they inject Rain and Kaplan with the anti-virus. The Licker attacks them, clawing Matt and killing Kaplan. Alice subdues the Licker before a zombified Rain attacks Matt, the anti-virus having failed to cure her. He shoots Rain dead.
At the mansion, Matt's wound begins mutating. Before Alice can give him the anti-virus, a group of Umbrella scientists seizes them. They reveal Matt is to be put into the Nemesis Program, and the Hive is to be re-opened for an investigation into the incident.
Sometime later, Alice wakes up at the Raccoon City Hospital strapped to an examination table. She escapes outside, only to find Raccoon City in ruins. She retrieves a shotgun from an abandoned police car for defense.
