xamtaro Resident evil 2002 reviewHello. This is the resident evil movie franchise. And this is its story. The start of its story. It was conceptualised as an adaptation of the "Biohazard" horror genre video game, renamed "Resident Evil" for the global market. Paul Ws Anderson, director of the successful Mortal Kombat movie, was chosen to spearhead the project. But something seemed wrong. The characters were different from the game. Changed. Unrecognisable. It seemed as if he read the synopsis at the back of the video game box then tossed it out in favour of his own script. A script. Consisting of dialogue as silted as the first paragraph of this review. Considering that the games were never well liked for their characters' flowery discourse or Shakespearean soliloquy, the creators of the movie cut and pasted elements from other movies in Paul Ws Anderson's DVD collection then give it some cosmetic do-over to resemble the video games. Special force team sent to deal with an unknown threat in a cavernous facility? Aliens (which Anderson is unabashedly a fan of). The facility is "alive" and trying to kill you? Event horizon (also directed by Anderson). Actress Milla Jovovich in a skimpy red dress, combat boots, scenes teasing near nudity and doing all sorts of nimble kung fu to show off her lithe hot body? Straight out of Anderson's wet dreams. Jovovich plays Alice. Who the heck is Alice? We do not know as she's got amnesia. But clues to who she is are sprinkled throughout the film and it is fun to piece it all together by the end. What can I say? Other than that, Alice is a blank slate audience surrogate. The ultimate escapism protagonist titilating the men and allowing women to feel empowered by how she maintains her stunning beauty while fending off shameless groping perv.....I mean, shambling groups of zombies which only appear more than halfway through the movie.For much of the first half we are treated to a whole sequence of a special forces team breaking into a dark scary mansion to find Alice and another guy named Matt. The mansion is a cover for a hidden entrance to The Hive, a massive underground facility that had been had been mysteriously sealed. The artificial intelligence Programme dubbed "red queen" had killed all personnel in the hive and it was up to this special team to find out why. This is essentially a modernised haunted house story with the "house" being the hive and the red queen springing traps to kill the intruders. Though lacking in actual zombies, the film maintains a brisk pace and an increasing sense of dread as we descend further. The appearance of another amnesia named Spence compounds the mystery when they learn the lockdown was initiated by a virus outbreak and the red queen was merely acting to contain the virus. When the action kicks in, it is fantastic. Sure the characters do some silly things that fly in the face of common sense but the fight scenes are well shot with tight angles and claustrophobic feel which heighten the sense of panic when facing the zombie hordes with no escape. The mystery story is well plotted and shot but the experience is dampened by some of the corniest special effects even for a movie of its age. Near the end, they have a run in with a Super powered Monster rendered in the worst cgi ever. Why they decided to use rudimentary computer graphics instead of practical effects, puppetry and make up astounds me. The creature never blends with the rest of the footage and the disappointment is that it could easily have been done with a stuntman in a suit or animatronics. With an eventual resolution leaving more questions than answers, RESIDENT EVIL is undoubtedly a fun guilty pleasure. It does not follow the story but retains the tone of the games. A shallow superficial plot is at least held up by consistent tension and decent pulse pounding action. Once you can forgive all the familiar elements borrowed from other movies, RESIDENT EVIL proves itself to be a decent start to a Long running science fiction horror franchise.

Fella_shibby I saw this first in a theatre in 2002. It is a fast-paced, high octane zombie flick filled with brisk action sequences. Revisited it recently on a DVD. Seen all its sequels in theatre. The plot - A virus has been released inside a secret underground lab, turning its workers into zombies, a military task force is deployed to take care of the problem. The lab is filled with traps n packed with flesh-eating creatures n ferocious dogs. The film actually does an efficient job of recreating the ambiance of the video game. The initial office building chaos is great and there's a bit of nastiness involving an elevator scene. The film is famous for its laser defence system scene, the zombified dogs, awesome fight scene with the zombie doberman dogs n different creatures. It is also an adventure film in which the lead characters, especially Milla Jovovich always move forward without looking back. Another known face, Michelle Rodriguez is at her sexiest when wielding a weapon. Paul W.S. Anderson famous for action/horror/sci-fi films did a fine job with the direction.

Thomas Drufke Video game movies have been awful for decades now. Resident Evil isn't necessarily the exception to that rule, but it's nowhere near as awful as the genre has been.Resident Evil is at its best when it pushes aside the politics of this "secret military group" named The Umbrella, and instead is an homage to the original Alien. When the film takes twists and turns that are supposed to surprise you, when in fact, they feel like a weak attempt at shock, it becomes overwhelmingly convoluted. But in the instances that the survivors, led by Alice (Milla Jovovich), are scrambling through rooms doing anything to survive CGI creatures and flesh eating zombies, Resident Evil is pure guilty pleasure.Much like the Underworld franchise, I honestly don't care about any of the supporting characters. Knowing where most zombie flicks go, there's really no use to getting attached to secondary characters when you know their deaths are all but guaranteed. I did, however, find Alice to be compelling, as long as the sequels do more to expand her history and explain how she became an absolute bada**. In fact, one can make the argument that Alice is a more likable character than Selene is in Underworld.As I've said a lot recently, there's nothing wrong with a mindless action adventure if it doesn't take itself too seriously. Resident Evil is actually a pretty serious film, people are dying left and right, and the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. But there's something to be said about a throwback action-horror taking place in one confined space. In this case, it gives the viewer a sense of what a first person shooter game with this story would feel like. I've never played any of the games, but I can certainly see where this story lends itself to the video game medium. Now, is there an excuse for a horrendous looking creature via CGI? Or maybe some truly useless characters with weak (at best) dialogue? No, I can't say there is. But hey, it's a solid cable watch.+Action that doesn't pull punches+Alice is likable-Dated CGI-Inexcusably bad dialogue5.8/10

zardoz-13 "Mortal Combat" director Paul W.S. Anderson's first entry in the "Resident Evil" franchise is basically a low-budget zombie munch-fest based on the popular Capcom video game that spawned the series. This $ 30-million horror chiller relies on several narrative devices to fuel its adrenalin-laced antics. First, the heroine suffers from amnesia as she struggles to remember what she was doing in the ultra-secret, high-tech, subterranean laboratory of the Umbrella Corporation where scientists have been conducting research and development on experimental viruses for military usage. Second, from the moment that the rescue team arrives and collects Alice (Milla Jovovich of "The Fifth Element"), Matt (Eric Mabius of "Cruel Intentions"), and Spence (James Purefoy of "Solomon Kane"), they have an hour to penetrate the Hive, carry out their mission, and exit the complex before it seals itself shut. Third, the entire experience occurs in a claustrophobic setting that accentuates the suspense after our heroes encounter a zombie horde. Everybody earning a paycheck in the Hive dies when a traitor smashes a lethal t-virus container that shuts down the facility and winds up spreading death. Fourth, the ravenous undead are not the only adversaries that our heroes must contend with; zombie Dobermanns threaten them as well as a mysteriously mutated monster with a long, elastic tongue and razor-sharp claws that can penetrate a train. Believe it or not, Anderson displays some discretion in some of the greatest gut-churning scenes. When a group is trapped inside an elevator, one woman squeezes her head through an opening and realizes too late as do her companions that she is going to be decapitated when the elevator goes upward and smashes her head. The audience, especially those that have played the Capcom game, know that you have to put a bullet in a zombie's head to kill it. Unfortunately, our stalwart heroes aren't privy to this life-saving information. Eventually, the supercomputer that regulates the Hive and takes the holographic form of an adolescent female becomes another of our heroes' adversaries.As the plot unfolds, Alice regains her memory in bits and pieces and realizes that she was the individual who had decided to expose the Umbrella Corporation. All of the laboratory technicians in the Hive perish tragically through no fault of their own because one mysterious individual sabotaged the Hive. These employees come back to life as zombies that live only to eat. These zombies are traditional "Night of the Living Dead" shambling walkers. The close quarters inside the Hive as well as the booby-traps that our heroes must navigate to avoid constitutes a primary form of suspense. At one point, our desperate heroes clamber atop the air condition ducts dangling by wires from the ceiling to escape the zombies milling about beneath them. One of the more memorable scenes takes place before this one when the rescue team arrives in a hallway that has been booby-trapped with the equivalent of a cheese grater made up of lasers to slice up the rescue team as they scramble to avoid them. Our heroine Alice—dressed in a skimpy red dress—contends with hunger Dobermanns in one of the strongest scenes in the film. Just when she thinks that she had taken care of these menacing dogs, she runs into others. Before long, even these canines mutilate undead dogs and attack Milia, but she knows how to contend with them."Resident Evil" gets the franchise off to a fitting start when our hero arrives by train.