Movie Review: ‘Resident Evil’ (2002)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, martin Crewes, Colin Salmon

Plot: A secret underground lab locks down amid a viral outbreak. This is followed by amnesiac secret agent Alice joining a team of mercenaries looking to infiltrate the lab.

Review: There’s something to be said for less being more. Nothing gets left to the imagination in this madcap take on the creeping horror of the Resident Evil video games. With the celebrated Zach Cregger preparing his new version for cinemas, it’s time to do something I’ve never done before—watch the Paul W. S. Anderson/Milla Jovovich spousal-driven franchise.

Right out the gate, a booming voice tells us about the all-powerful Umbrella Corporation before we jump into one of their underground labs for some sabotage. A mysterious blue tube is broken, which leads to a lockdown and the systemic culling of all the workers. It could be alluded to as a mysterious overseer through a cutaway to a security camera, but we have to have frequent cuts to a POV camera shot with digital overlays telling us what’s going on. You will not have to think for a minute here; everything will be writ large with a read-along guide. There’s no room for mystery when we could be told that someone is watching everything. Before there’s any threat established, the characters explain to each other about the killer AI that runs the place. Maybe save something for the rest of the movie there.

Next to be introduced is the director’s wife, presented to us nude. This is a curious thing about the Anderson/Jovovich team—it sometimes feels as though we’re participating in their own bedroom scenarios. Jovovich dresses up in a revealing, tight-fitting fetish outfit, and he shoots her showing as much skin as possible, leaving us awkwardly having to participate. Jovovich here is ‘Alice’, who has no memory but starts getting flashbacks before she has any dialogue. After slamming us with jumpscares, suggestions of supernatural presences, weird animal behaviour, secret compartments… every horror trope they could think of… the standard team of grizzled mercenaries turns up to sass each other and explore the thematically designed underground laboratory.

I’d accuse the film of trying to replicate the style of Aliens, but I’m pretty sure that’s a feature and not a bug. Colin Salmon doing his best Apone is kinda fun.

On occasion, the film remembers that it’s supposed to be a horror movie, and horror needs to build suspense, so a character will stop and look down a hallway for a moment like something is going to happen… and then someone passes by and startles them. It happens a good three or four times before any monsters turn up.

There are moments when the film comes alive (so to speak). Some action scenes are well-paced and creative. The laser grid is a standout moment, even if it mostly wipes out the cast before a single zombie. But for every one of those, there are two action scenes where Anderson just doesn’t know when to rein it in. CGI at this point in time would be best served in the shadows, or with fleeting glimpses… certainly not front and centre, where we can see the seams.

By the time the movie has escalated to the point of monsters, we’ve mostly been reduced to a couple of white guys with brown hair, mostly interchangeable, as they work their way through the Big Book of Zombie Clichés. Sometimes a character will stay behind for a Noble Moment, but the dialogue is so silly that it’s more often laughable. Almost as silly as when the evil computer does its spooky British girl thing.

This is very much the Anderson film more than it’s a Resident Evil. It has the right level of camp, but it gets held back by the overuse of video-game-level graphics.

Rating: FOUR out of TEN