Resident Evil (2002)

I should start this review by noting that I loathe Michelle Rodriguez as an actor. I can't believe that someone can build her career on ripping off Private Vasquez from Aliens, but Rodriquez sure as hell has (see: S.W.A.T. and Lost in addition to this movie...and don't even get me started about the piece of shit that was BloodRayne). Why, you may ask would Ripley, also a kick-ass, strong woman, be terrific and Rain not so much. The difference between Weaver playing Ripley and Rodriguez playing Rain is depth of character, which is why Ripley is believable and Rain is flat out annoying. I almost hate this movie solely because of her involvement. If it was enough to push me over the edge and make me stop watching one of the most innovative shows on TV, why wouldn’t it drive me away from Resident Evil? One reason: because I never played a series of Lost video games that had me so completely addicted that my grades starting slipping. That’s why.

So this movie—despite its numerous flaws—gets automatic points with me (sort of like putting your name on the SAT). I can see why some people (particularly people who loved the video game series) enjoy this movie, and I can see why some people (particularly hard-core gamers or horror movie fans) won’t like it. The ones who’ll love it most are non-hardcore gamers who have not seen or don't clearly remember Aliens.

Anderson's writing and direction here is incredibly derivative, and Aliens is just the most obvious example to me. The incursion team and the individual characteristics of its members is directly indebted to Cameron’s picture. Just to tick off a few of the examples: here they're sent by the Umbrella Corporation to check out a profitable facility that's gone offline, just as Aliens' Marines are sent in by The Company (Weyland-Yutani) for the exact same reason; One, the Black taskmaster, is a copy of Sergeant Apone (he was the de facto leader, not the wuss lieutenant); Rodriguez's Rain is, as I noted, Pvt. Vazquez; and Alice is Ripley, taking control after One/Apone dies. All they needed was a cyborg to complete the rip-off.

The hospital scene at the end--which, by the way, illustrates Seinfeld's law of good naked and bad naked--also seems much like the beginning of 28 Days Later, and the fact that they were released within months of each other strongly suggests some sort of influence (like the release of Dante’s Peak and Volcano, or Deep Impact and Armageddon in the same years).

Unfortunately, this movie’s flaws go far past mere hackery. The CGI and special effects are pretty sad for a film with this kind of budget. In fact, the CGI sequence of the Licker in the game Resident Evil 2 actually looks better than the special effects when the Licker kills Spence; it was definitely scarier within the context of the video game than it was within the context of the movie. With the movie, it seems they felt as if they had to hold the audience's hand and make everything really obvious. In Resident Evil 2, the only way you knew that Licker was going to be there was to have played the scene before or looked very closely at the window in a previous room to see the Licker crawl past.

This is not a good thing for a horror movie—to lose out to a video game in scariness and realism. What makes it worse is that the game was produced in like 1999 and the movie in 2004. Of course, the Silent Hill video game was scarier than the movie by far. And the effects in Resident Evil do get worse: the flames on the giant Licker being dragged behind the train by its tongue made use of some truly crap-tastic CGI effects. Know your audience! We are the kinds of dorks who look for and are turned off by things like this. So don't do it.

The thing that bothers me the most is a little detail used to flesh out the logic behind the T-virus program. I’m not usually one to point out plot holes or logical breakdowns in movies because they are horror movies and require some suspension of disbelief. But I have to make an exception here because not only does the Red Queen make reference to hair and fingernails growing after death, but the producer does too in one of the DVD featurettes. I wish they'd done even a modicum of research to find out that this is not true. Five minutes on Google would have told you that. Come on.

I know I am being really hard on this movie, and part of it is because I don't care for any of the actors. I've already hated on Rodriguez. I think Milla Jovovich is a terrible actress (I mean, have you actually seen Ultraviolet?), and she was a main draw for a lot of people and could therefore cover a multitude of sins. The best actor of the bunch, Colin Solomon, gets killed early on with all the members of the incursion team that aren't essential to the narrative arc. Too bad.

I did think there were some good points to this picture—mainly because of my experience with the games. As soon as I saw the Dobermans before the T-virus had been released, I knew there was going to be some shit going down in this joint! And the zombie dogs looked fantastic. Their scene with Alice was not very exciting, but my initial reaction was one of joy when I realized they'd be a part of the movie. Even when they stepped out and their paws made that “click-click” on the floor, I recognized the sound as that of the Licker in the video game Resident Evil 2. The allusions to the video game helped to steer my thinking and expectations—even if those expectations were sometimes disappointed. And then comes the Licker. As soon as it busts out of that metal box, you know it's going to be a problem, but unless you play the games, you have no idea what kind of problem and what it's capable of doing. Likewise with the train. A horror movie buff would know that something might happen, but the expectation of a giant "boss" attacking, and punching through the walls of the car, is something that is only going to come from experience with the game. That is what makes it a richer and more rewarding movie for me (as does the Nemesis reference at the end when they're taking Matt away).

I can completely understand and almost always agree with the negative points made about the movie, but I cannot seem to agree with the final judgment those negative comments support. It's one of those movies that, for all of its blatant and annoying faults, I can watch again and again. It must just be the gamer in me.