Was That Film Really That Bad??? Resident Evil (2002)

Paul W.S. Anderson is a bit of a local lad, having been born in Wallsend. His first film, Shopping, was a low-budget crime thriller (and extremely 90's), with a plot set around joyriding and ram-raiding. (Rumours that the latter criminal enterprise was started in Felling have never been substantiated). He found a wider audience with Mortal Kombat, a 1995 videogame movie that had the rather dubious honour of not being completely shite and which actually turned a hefty profit. The forthcoming 2021 Mortal Kombat film, however, looks to crap on the original from a great height. Nevertheless, Wor Paul (as he might be known to some), managed a blinder in 1997 with Event Horizon, a sci-fi horror cult classic (meaning box-office dud that picked up an enthusiastic following upon home release). That brilliant film, gentle reader, will never appear as a WTFRTB post. Ever. After Event Horizon and the flawed Soldier in 1998, Wor Paul didn't do much cinema wise until 2002, when he wrote, directed and produced another videogame adaptation: Resident Evil. 

I remember this one well and, to be honest, enjoyed it. Having not been a massive fan of the games at that point, I wasn't among the flaming torches and pitchforks brigade that cried foul upon the film's release. But how does it fare today?

Plot wise, we have the Umbrella Corporation (very bad, as explained by the traditional videogame movie trope, the narrator/text introduction. That, however, is not as bad as the War and Peace intro to Alone in the Dark), whose secret underground lab, ran by an Artificial Intelligence called the Red Queen, has been compromised by someone stealing, and letting loose, the T-Virus, which able to reanimate corpses. Cue a bunch of hard-ass special forces types and our main protagonists who are linked together by their employment by or fight against said Corp, and what you basically have is 100 minutes of backstory, poorly timed and repetitive jump scares, and a zombie movie hampered by its relatively low budget and the tame use of a UK 15 cinema rating. Mind you, some of the story points work well: the initial heist, the build up to meeting the AI and even the postscript which promises much (I'll call this out as whilst a movie can always end on a teaser, that teaser should never outshine the film that has just preceded it).

Mr Purefoy (calm down!) but no weiner this time...

Casting is a bit of a mixed bag. Milla Jovovich is not bad as Alice. She looks the part and you can tell that she's putting her all into it. Sadly, because her character has a form of amnesia for most of the film, by the finale, you'll probably be asking yourself "Alice? Alice?? Who the fuck is Alice?". This is not Jovovich's fault, more that of the script and the direction (sorry, Wor Paul!). Still, when she realises she's a kick-ass security dame, it's pretty much there on screen. James Purefoy (calm down!) should really get second billing as Spence Parks, but he's missing for pretty much the first half of the film. His performance is more laconic, and his American "accent" is touch and go. You also don't believe for a second that he and Jovovich were in any way intimate. Fans of Mr Purefoy (calm down, I tell thee!) who have seen him in Rome or Altered Carbon will, however, be disappointed with this film as he doesn't get little (*ahem*) Jimmy out. The rest of us should be thankful. Eric Mabius plays Matt Addison quite blandly, a cop/environmental activist looking for his sister who was trying to reveal the secrets of the underground lab. He's not given much to do apart from wear a slightly too tight shirt and look concerned. Still, he went on to better (Ugly Betty) and worse things (2011's BBC sci-fi series Outcasts. That was dire!). 

Does she not desire to visit Pemberley?

Onto the hard-ass squad and only three stand out. Colin Salmon gets to flex his action muscles as James Shade, the leader of said squad. Being confident, obviously good at his job (although again the American "accent" wavers badly) and someone who can get stuff done, you just know his screen time is going to be limited though he does get to show off some acrobatic skills before being diced up by a laser field. Michelle Rodriguez is another hard-ass commando, Rain Ocampo. Yeah, I know, she gets typecast a lot for this and you have to wonder, does she not yearn for something different, like an Austen adaptation or maybe a guest appearance in Doc Martin. Hell, if Sigourney Weaver can do it, so can Michelle! Anyway, she's good value as always but you can't help but think she slept walked through this one. The only other commando of note is Martin Crewes as Chad Kaplan, the techie member of the squad who has a fair bit of screen time and looks as if the casting director was looking for an older David Boreanaz clone. He almost makes it to the end, but like the rest of the squad, you know they're all going to die as the film progresses. Still, unlike the other, at least you get to kind of know him as the rest are just zombie/laser fodder.  One final cast member who goes uncredited is Jason Isaacs. He narrates the opening info dump and appears as Dr William Birkin (behind a surgical mask) at the end of the film. Up to this point he was a kind of talisman for Wor Paul, having appeared in Shopping, Event Horizon (he did not end up in a good place in that one) and Soldier. Sadly for continuity buffs, he did not play the role in later films.

We see you, Isaacs!

Having given this another watch (I recently bought the six movie collection so yes, they'll all be appearing in WTFRTB posts is due course), would I say it's really that bad? It depends. How drunk are you and how closely are you following the plot?

Falling in the shower is never this graceful.

Ah, yes, the plot. It's there, but Wor Paul has followed the path of trying to have a cool looking action movie rather than have the events in said movie make any kind of sense whatsoever. 

I'd even accept Clippy from MS Office over this...

First up, the Red Queen. Never, ever have an Artificial Intelligence run something. Why? Because it always ends up bad for the meat sacks supposedly running the place. Also, why the little girl avatar? It's creepy and whoever considered the UX aspect of this super computer should really talk to a professional, and that's before we get to the precocious child approach. The Red Queen is annoying and off-putting at the same time, and then we have the logic of sealing a lab off and killing everyone in it when a virus that will reanimate the dead is loose. Think about that for a second, then stop, because it makes no sense whatsoever. But hey, she's psychopathic so why not. It also makes a mockery of health and safety rules - seal a lab which contains chemicals in it and flood it with water using sprinklers, whilst in the public areas, use Halon gas. You know, the inert gas that doesn't react with anything so is used in situations where you don't want any unplanned reactions. 

They even shout about covering the experiments! Sheesh!

And that squad - I mean, professionals? Really? Half-aimed full auto might look cool but it ain't going to stop shit after they have burned through the three magazines each person carries. Not that we see mag changes or reloads unless its important to the plot. I mean, we're not quite at the Commando stage where Arnie is hosing down legions of bad guys that, in the pesky world of physics, would also have near melted the barrel of his rifle, but RE's pretty bad. The death of half the squad by walking into a corridor without thinking about getting stuck in there is pretty stupid too. But hey, that's the way the story goes and it's a chance to get some tame gore on the screen. Then we have their actual knowledge of the facility. Their employers let them go in without prep or knowledge of Dining Hall B (there is bad shit in there and I am not referring to the re-heated tacos from last Tuesday). I mean, the Red Queen might have gone crazy but the bosses in Head Office aren't in line for any humanitarian awards either. 

Wrist-mounted computer... cool...

There again, technology is not this film's strong point either, with Kaplan's magic wrist-mounted computer being the prime culprit. It's a re-purposed WinCE palmtop and does "computer things" like showing a map with their locations noted by their heat signatures - but how does it do that when it's not connected to any sensor network mentioned in the film? Also, how can he type at all with gloves on and that crappy little keyboard? Trust me, I have some of these period palmtops similar to the one in the film (check out my thoughts on some here, here and here) and it's techno-bullshit that he can use it. The film even uses the old "smash monitor to stop computer" malarkey - I mean, seriously??? I should also mention the Licker here, a popular creature from the games series. Its inclusion serves a purpose but stating that every time it feasts on something, its DNA mutates? That would make it easy to stop, just give it a plate of escargot and wait a few seconds.

Absolute bollocks! Also, continuity check - gloves or no gloves???

Also, what the hell is Alice's job anyway? She and Parks (you're not getting a "calm down" here as I didn't say Purefoy's (calm down!) name... oh, fudge!) are glorified guards but guarding what? The train station under the mansion leading to the lab? Surely having the main entry point for staff and goods at the mansion would bring more attention to the place anyway? "Oh, have you seen that lovely couple in the big house in the forest? They have a lot of staff, all dressed as office workers and doing 9-5 shifts." Daft, I tell you. And then there is the defence mechanism that knocks people out even if they're on the train or in the mansion (including any security bods in the mansion) when the alarm goes off. WTAF???

Would give the lickings of a... never mind.

Let's not forget about those info dumps either. I counted three outside of the initial narration and they are exposition filled roadblocks in the pacing of the film. Oh, they move the story along, just in short, sharp bursts in between the poorly acted zombie bits. 

Exposition map ahoy!

These issues are emblematic of the usual approach to videogame movies - they are aimed at what is considered their core audience: teenage boys. Yep, this is why we get Jovovich waking up in a shower with the curtain draped lovingly across her naked body. Sure, she was knocked unconscious by some gas but as someone who once slipped in a shower, I can tell you I did not land gracefully, nor cover myself artfully with a shower curtain. Still, we get a flash of nipple in that scene, so tick one for that particular demographic. Same thing happens at the end of the movie when Alice wakes up in hospital - more titillation for the audience. 

I was hoping to capture the cool part of this kick... Oops!

Despite all of that, Resident Evil isn't entirely crap. It's actually enjoyable in a "switch brain off and have a beer" kind of way. Sure, the budget sometimes makes it look cheap (Dining Hall B is straight out of a bad episode of BBC's mid-90's light-hearted action show Bugs, though some of you may rightly ask if there were any good episodes. All I can say is that it wasn't Crime Traveller), and that 2002 CGI has aged terribly. There are nods to classic zombie movies (JD's death, the axe dragger) even if the action sequences are overblown and let down by some frankly crap wire work. The music isn't bad though, and yes, it is Marilyn Manson gaining a credit for the that.

Yeah, there's that $33m budget right there...

Resident Evil, then, is a guilty pleasure. You could start a drinking game pointing out the naff bits or unintentional double entendre's (Exhibit A, M'Lud, the Licker... "Ohhhh, Matron!"), but that would be to miss the point. That would be the same point that the unhappy fans of the games missed when this was released. Videogames are a different medium to cinema and whilst the story of a game can, and will, last you hours, cinema goers usually have 90 minutes to two hours (unless you're Peter Jackson or Zack Snyder) to rattle through a tale. RE isn't a classic by any means, and if I am to be brutally honest, it's not good cinema either, but it filled a gap and doesn't disgrace the genre of videogames movies too much. One day. I'll re-watch some videogames movies by Uwe Boll - the aforementioned Alone in the Dark, Far Cry, House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, In the Name of the King) and do some WTFRTB posts that will really push the idea of asking if they were really that bad. 

You tease, you!!!

What can be said for Resident Evil is that it was a box office success and resulted in five more films. In total, these have grossed over $1.2 billion on a total budget spend of $233 million, and the first film had the lowest budget ($33m) and takings ($103m)! Wor Paul wrote the scripts for all of the sequels as well as directing films three to six. That's some going, and all the time working with his wife - this continued with 2011's The Three Musketeers, a future WTFRTB candidate. Yes, he married Milla and even introduced her to Greggs pasties. You can take the lad out of Wallsend...