Resident Evil Film (2002) Review by Tyler Berrio

In 1996, Capcom, a Japanese video game company, released the first game in their hit series Resident Evil. It was the first game ever released that contained all the staples of the zombie-horror movie genre, and Resient Evil became a household name worldwide. It contained all the makings of a great movie; an expansive plot, rounded characters, and most important of all, zombies. It was no surprise then, that in 2002 the first Resident Evil film was made.

Resident Evil stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, a special member of the Umbrella Corporation with serious amnesia. Waking up in a mansion, Alice and Matt (Eric Mabius) are taken away by employees of Umbrella and sent into The Hive, a genetic research facility located deep underground. The group travels through The Hive where madness ensues as the remnants of the scientists in the lab attack them, now zombified due to the virus that Umbrella developed and has now leaked.

Having no connections with the series it is based off of, Resident Evil does a poor job of being the “ultimate game-movie tie-in” it was expected to be. The characters, while all stereotypical of the horror genre, have no real personalities. Alice’s character is created by the flashbacks she suffers, as she is a recent amnesiac, but it does a poor job of putting her on a relatable level with the audience. The flashbacks seem to serve as a deus ex machina type of device, only appearing when it is most convenient to progress the story. The rest of the characters have even less character development; when they aren’t being bitten by zombies, they’re yelling and shouting at each other. There is no real connection between any of the characters, and by the end of the movie when most of them are dead, you don’t really care all that much.

The plot revolves around the illegal activities of the Umbrella Corporation as the characters fight to survive what seems to be a breach in security. This, for all intents and purposes, should be a b-movie effort and nothing more. The plot tries to touch upon the theme of corporate corruption, but ultimately it’s just an excuse for the zombies to exist. The set pieces attempt to be epic in scale, but they fall short of other great movies, mimicking the style but not the success. Nothing serves as a shocker to the viewer despite some cheap scares and a character defection that was all too expected. Alice is able to get herself out of almost any situation, and she serves as the stereotypical badass heroine. The way she inherits these qualities, however, is ludicrous and far-fetched.

As a tie in with the successful game, it was expected that this would be the ultimate survival horror movie. It settles for a mediocre attempt at a genre that has already made its niche and doesn’t want to be changed. The set pieces are lame, the protagonists and antagonists are unbelievable, and even the zombies, perhaps the most important part of the film, are second-rate at best. This film doesn’t capture the gritty, horrific atmosphere of its counterpart; instead, it settles for an action flick that tries to be too much at some parts, yet fails at the entire concept of zombie horror. As the film closes and Milla Jovovich walks away into the destroyed, zombie-infested nightmare, so should you walk away from this nightmare of a movie.

That is, until, Resident Evil 2, the film, is released.

Me By Day, Milla By Night; By Chelsea Paige

My first encounter with Milla Jovovich was in the Resident Evil movies. While I don’t remember much of the movies’ plot, due to the amount of alcohol I require in my system to enjoy jump-out-at-you thriller/horror movies, I remembered Milla’s cropped red hair and bright green eyes. Later I realized her eyes are actually blue. But my point is, she’s set up in those films as a very important character, almost more central than the plot. Anyone who’s seen this series of movies can tell you that.

Milla’s career is predicated around being remembered. At the age of 11, a photographer named Richard Avedon caught sight of her and featured her in Revlon’s Most Unforgettable Women in the World ad campaign. It was this start that led to her highly successful (and ongoing) modeling career, and it was her modeling career that led to her acting roles. The first of many was in The Fifth Element (1997). Her most recent role was Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (2011), which was directed by her husband of two years, Paul W.S. Anderson.

It could easily be said that it was catching a photographer’s eye at the age of 11 that prompted the rest of her career. Even at the age of 11 she had a face that a photographer couldn’t forget. She went on to dabble in music, releasing a folk album of her singing entitled The Divine Comedy when she was just 16. Later she was part of a band called Plastic Has Memory, whose sound was more akin to Portishead than her former folk sound. Part of her interview with Oneworld in 1997 mentions that she was also into hiphop for a time during the 90s when she lived in L.A.

As previously mentioned, Milla still has movies forthcoming with roles such as Amalia Bezhetskaya in The Winter Queen (2012), and Alice in Resident Evil: Retribution (2012). According to her website, she still enjoys making music and still does modeling, but, “She’s always maintained that modeling doesn’t really thrill her; rather, she’s in it for the money.” In an interview with Oneworld in 1997, she said, “Modeling is great when you have talent, dedication and you really put the time in. Without that you are just another moment.”

I know I will continue to remember Milla, not as the centerpiece of the Resident Evil series, but also as one of those people who doesn’t limit herself. Granted, from those early modeling contracts she’s always had the money to do what she wanted to, but she hasn’t been deterred from her forays into whatever type of music she pleases, and I’d imagine she’s got to be supremely pleased with and proud of her acting career. I can’t even imagine the confidence boost that must come from being a top-billed model with multiple ongoing campaigns, either.

These are the main reasons why I say I’ll stick with being me by day, but I’d love to be Milla Jovovich by night.

Movies mentioned above (hyperlinks go to IMDb):

The Fifth Element (1997)

The Three Musketeers (2011)

The Winter Queen (2012)

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Video game and movie Discrepencies strike again, this time with Resident Evil by Ryan Ashburner

Turn on the game system. Resident Evil jumps out across the screen and a booming growl emits “Resident Evil”. Suddenly here you are amidst a creepy battle between living and walking dead. Now it’s time to kick some serious zombie tail.

You choose a character and get ready to fight whatever jumps around the corner. The uniquely placed camera angles leaves suspense wherever you point that shotgun. Open a door into a gloomy room with eerie music consisting of mysterious diaries and documents. Maybe even find some puzzles to open the door in a strange mansion that’s more than what meets the eye.

Turn on the DVD. There’s a plot, a viral outbreak has occurred in an underground facility named “The Hive” and the workers and inhabitants are all turning into zombies. Now we have a set of characters we become familiar with. Here we have a George A. Romero-esque live action zombie plague.

Coming from an avid fan of the Resident Evil series, I noticed the differences quite quickly between the movies and the games, leaving me scratching my head.

For starters I noticed this woman Alice, played by Milla Jokovich was this security guard for The Umbrella Corporation, who secretly develops viruses for bio-weapons. She later becomes infected and teams with STARS specialist in the fight for humanity. The Umbrella part I understood, but who was this woman becoming a central character to the plot, yet I had never encountered her in any single game prior to the movie?

I know in films, character development is important and they can’t just be robots, (in which they tend to act in videogames) but what bothers me is the main game characters such as STARS’ Jill Valentine interacting with other characters I feel as though I should know from playing the games. Never has there ever been a character who worked among Umbrella yet, then revolted against the system.

One main direction the films went was in which they fully disregarded the Resident Evil zero game which was released a year before the movie. Where was the acknowledgment of the enigmatic James Marcus and his giant leech creatures? The films wanted to base the macabre and wrongdoings in large part to Albert Wesker but from playing the series; this was simply not the case.

Might I also add that Resident Evil 2 is largely disregarded as well. As viewers experience the monstrous frog-like beasts considered the Lickers, the game misses most of the various different creatures introduced in the second game, such as the mutating creatures exposed to perhaps the more powerful G-virus.

But it isn’t just the story and character development that has been skewed but also the rough idea of certain translated creatures. Just take the nemesis featured in Resident Evil 3 and Apocalypse. In the film, while the intention of Nemesis remains to destroy STARS members and whatever stands in its way, it doesn’t show how the virus causes it to evolve through time as it does in the game, and also gives the Nemesis an emotional light, in which it breaks down at the end of Apocalypse. While this is done for the sake of Hollywood, this is not The Nemesis I know.

Among the differences however lie similarities and reasons within the film in which a gamer fan can appreciate. The strong acknowledgment of the mansion remains strong as a tie-in between the movies and games. The basic story of the T-Virus is essentially the same. And while the outcomes are certainly different for characters in the game, the film characters have the same names and occupations.

What I am mostly driving toward, is the fact that a movie can ruin a gamer’s film derived experience, as this film series has officially done for me. The Resident Evil movies were a huge success and brought a somewhat different story attributed to a zombie outbreak. Sure, Action and horror was a premium in both games, but as someone who has played and beaten many of the games through and through, sometimes I am left shaking my head and I wonder if these writers and directors base their knowledge off of basic summaries rather than becoming deeply immersed in the games. They strive to appeal to common game fans with the mere title and decide to create their own diverse Resident Evil world. The world–wide famous game from the nineties should be the main focus for a film from the millennium based from the series, fair and square, the games have the upper-hand.