Resident Evil (film)
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| Resident Evil | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Paul Anderson |
| Produced by | Paul Anderson Jeremy Bolt Bernd Eichinger Samuel Hadida |
| Written by | Paul Anderson |
| Starring | Milla Jovovich Michelle Rodriguez Eric Mabius James Purefoy Colin Salmon Martin Crewes |
| Music by | Marco Beltrami Depeche Mode |
| Cinematography | David Johnson |
| Editing by | Alexander Berner Mehdi Nebbou |
| Distributed by | Sony |
| Release date(s) |  March 15, 2002 April 25, 2002 July 12, 2002 August 31, 2002 |
| Running time | 100 min. |
| Country | Germany / United Kingdom / France |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $32,000,000 |
| Followed by | Resident Evil: Apocalypse |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Resident Evil (a.k.a. Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil: Ground Zero, and Resident Evil: Genesis) is a film adaptation based upon Capcom's survival horror series Resident Evil. The movie is a British/German/French/American co-production which was mostly shot in Germany. The film stars Milla Jovovich, Eric Mabius, Michelle Rodriguez,and James Purefoy. The film is followed by two sequels: Apocalypse, which was released on September 10, 2004, and Extinction, which is currently in production and it is scheduled to be released on September 21, 2007.
Tagline: A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
[edit] Outbreak
In a top secret underground high tech laboratory known as The Hive, Umbrella employees and researchers are going about their business. In a side laboratory, an unknown individual in a Hazmat suit is placing vials of the t-virus into a case. As the individual finishes filling up the case, before leaving the Hive he throws a vial of the virus onto the floor, shattering it.
Just after he successfully leaves the facility, containment protocol is set in motion by The Hive's Super Computer known as The Red Queen, which is to seal off the Hive and go homicidal, killing everyone there. Researchers in the lab where the virus was released are sealed in and slowly drown, due to the activation of the room's fire sprinklers. In the office sections of the facility, the airtight doors seal shut and the Halon fire extinguishers activate, suffocating the office occupants.
In a trapped elevator, people are trying to jam the doors open. Suddenly, they all go quiet and hear people screaming and an elevator crashing in the shaft next to them. A woman tries to squeeze through the hole in the door, but it is too small, and she becomes stuck. Suddenly, the brakes release and the elevator falls, then it goes up again - with her head still stuck in the door gap.
[edit] Going Into The Hive
Her name is "unknown" in the first film but is revealed in the sequel.
Several hours later, elsewhere, a woman wakes up in a shower, dazed and confused. She walks around the huge mansion, but she cannot remember her name, does not know where she is, or what she is doing there. She goes outside and meets a man who claims to be a policeman before a helicopter drops a few Umbrella troops in gas masks and they advance upon the house. They find her and decide to take her along while they go towards The Hive. It shortly afterwards revealed that the mansion is the gateway to an underground railroad that leads into the Hive, and that the Hive is a research facility located hundreds of feet below the streets of Raccoon City.
The team find another man along their journey, who is apparently this womans husband, and takes him with them on the way into the Hive. They find the Hive complex deserted and eventually the team reaches the access point for the Hive computer. But the Hive does not want to be invaded and activates a laser grid protection system that kills the four soldiers who try to enter the Red Queen's chamber, including their leader, One.
After the team inside is dead, the remaining soldiers along with Alice manage to gain access to the Hive's central computer room. They are confronted by a hologram dubbed The Red Queen, a manifestation of the Hive's intelligence in the image of the original designer's daughter.
[edit] Reboot
The only way to stop the Hive is to reboot the computer. The Red Queen says doing so will have very bad consequences. They shut down the computer anyway; the entire complex suffers a blackout, and all the door locks are released, releasing scores of zombies. The team learns that the Hive, operated by the world's most powerful company, was designed as a research laboratory for biological weapons including viral weaponry. One strain could reanimate the dead into mindless zombies, or cause mutation in living beings. The Hive deployed its containment protocol in order to make sure the virus would not escape.
An environmentalist originally wanted to steal information on the Hive and expose it to the public. A guard at the Hive overheard this and had decided to steal some viral weaponry to sell to the highest bidder. He threw one of the vials as he left a research room, the vial broke, and the airborne virus was released. He became stuck close to the exit when the sealing of the Hive began; the gas knocked him out and removed his memory. The Umbrella team eventually finds the brother of that environmentalist, named Matt (it is learned that Alice was involved in that scheme while Spence, one of the men found in the Hive, is the corrupt guard).
As the power is restored from the system reboot. Alice, Matt, and Kaplan make it back to where Rain Ocampo (played by Michelle Rodriguez) and J.D. are, to find scores of Zombies. A fire fight ensues as the team tries to make it back to the elevator, just to find that Zombies have also crammed into the elevator. J.D. is grabbed by the mass of Zombies. Rain and Kaplan are forced to retreat back to the Red Queen chamber, while Alice is separated from Matt. Alice soon finds herself alone, and walks into an Umbrella testing laboratory where Dobermans have escaped and mutated into a Cerberus pack. As Alice fends herself from the Cerberus's, she finds out she has skills in Martial Arts and Weapons use, as another flashback ensues.
[edit] Searching For Answers
While in another area, Matt is in the offices of the Hive, searching for his sister Lisa's work space in order to try and find evidence against Umbrella. He is soon attacked by his sister as she has become a zombie, but is saved when Alice uses a paperweight to kill his zombified sister. As another flashback ensues, the movie goes back to Rain and Kaplan as they check weaponry and see that the team members killed by the Red Queen's defenses have disappeared. Alice and Matt are able to get into the Red Queen Chamber, and Alice comes up with a plan for them to get out alive.
By disabling the Red Queen's circuit breaker, Alice asks the Queen for a way out, and if she tries anything, Kaplan will fry the circuit boards. The Red Queen agrees to help them out, and points them to an exit, as well as telling them what the T-Virus does: It reanimates infected people after they die (hence everyone in the building breathed the virus from the air conditioning has become reanimated after the Red Queen had killed them) and how to kill the infected: by severing the spinal cord or severe cranial trauma.
The group moves through a maintenance tunnel, to soon find out that Zombies have also entered the tunnels in attempt to "feed" on the group. As the group tries to climb up on some pipes above the zombies, Kaplan is bit in the leg, and Rain encounters her friend J.D., who has become a zombie and soon bites Rain in the neck. After Rain kills J.D. she is pulled up onto the pipes.
The group begins to crawl on the pipes, with Zombies reaching up at them. Soon they encounter a junction in the pipes, where after being weighed down, collapses. Alice is able to make it to the shaft where Rain, Matt and Spence are, but Kaplan is on another shaft being sought after by the Zombies. As a final act of bravery, Kaplan yells to the group to move out without him, while he plans to kill himself with the last shot in his gun. As Alice reluctantly moves on, a gunshot is heard, but it is discovered Kaplan used his last shot to kill a Zombie that was nearing him. Uttering the words "you're going to have to work for your meal" he drags himself into the shaft in an attempt to escape the zombies.
[edit] Origin Of The Outbreak
Soon after, Alice, Rain, Matt, and Spence make it back to the laboratories and Alice has another flashback about the work that went down in there. She soon remembers that there is a cure to the T-Virus, and so she and the group enter a lab where the cure is supposedly there. Unfortunately, the cure is not within the lab, and more flashbacks ensue, revealing Spence is the person who released the T-Virus, and as Alice regains her full memories, she and Spence dive for a pistol laying on a small table. Spence grabs the gun and after explaining his actions to make Alice's dreams come true, he is bit by a zombie who was submerged in the water, and quickly runs out the door, shooting out the lock so that Alice, Matt, and Rain cannot follow him to the train.
Spence rushes to the train, pulling out the case, and preparing a single injection of the anti-virus, but he is interrupted as a Licker kills him, which has been set on him by the Red Queen to prevent him from stealing the virus. The licker is an early creation from the Hive made by injecting the T-Virus directly into living organisms. The Red Queen shows his death to Alice and Matt on a TV screen. After being exposed to blood, the Licker mutates into a more powerful form, and returns back to the laboratories. Alice and Matt try to exit through another door, but it is locked with a code. The Red Queen states that it will tell the code to them, if they will kill Rain, since she is infected. Rain wishes that Alice kills her, so that Alice and Matt can get out of the room before the Licker gets them, but in an act of defiance, Alice smashes the monitor which the Red Queen is using, and the room goes dark as Kaplan opens the door, and stating he had to fry the Red Queen because she would not open the door.
[edit] Escape From The Hive
The group rushes quickly to the train and board it. As the train begins speeding down the tracks, Alice injects Rain and Matt injects Kaplan with the anti-virus. Suddenly the Licker attacks, scratching Matt in the left arm, and then ripping Kaplan out from the train. The Licker then breaks through the back door of the train and attacks Alice, and Matt rams a pile of piping at the Licker, temporarily incapacitating it. Alice is able to suppress the Licker's tongue, trapping it over some doors on the floor of the train.
As Alice yells for Matt to push the button (which would open the door and drop the Licker onto the tracks), Matt runs around to see Rain's transformation into a Zombie. She attacks him, but he pushes her off, and is forced to kill her with a shot to the head. As her body falls back, it hits the button, and the Licker drops onto the tracks and bursts into a fireball. Matt closes the floor doors, cutting its suppressed tongue and leaving its fiery corpse on the tracks.
[edit] Quarantine and Apocalypse
Alice and Matt walk out of the train as it halts at the station, and exit out of the Hive just seconds before the blast doors close. As soon as they leave the mansion, they are grabbed by several men wearing white suits. The men are ordered to restrain them, and as Matt is taken, he shows signs of mutation due to the wound inflicted by the licker, and the order is given to put him in the Nemesis program. Also, orders are given to prepare a team and go into the Hive to find out what happened.
Alice is taken to the Raccoon City Hospital. She wakes up on a table and removes all the wires around her. She walks outside and sees that the city around her is devastated; a newspaper article reading "The Dead Walk" indicated that the virus has spread into Raccoon City. She grabs a shotgun from a wrecked police car displaying the S.T.A.R.S. logo and prepares for the Apocalypse.
[edit] Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| Milla Jovovich | Alice |
| Colin Salmon | One |
| Michelle Rodriguez | Rain Ocampo |
| Eric Mabius | Matt Addison |
| James Purefoy | Spence Parks |
| Martin Crewes | Kaplan |
| Indra Ové | Mrs. Black |
| Heike Makatsch | Dr. Lisa Addison |
| Michaela Dicker | Red Queen |
[edit] Production
| Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Argentina: | 13 |
| Australia: | MA 15+ |
| Brazil: | 16 |
| Canada (Brit.Col): | 18A |
| Canada (Alberta): | 18A |
| Canada (Manitoba): | R |
| Canada (Ontario): | R |
| Canada (Maritime): | 14 |
| Canada (Quebec): | 13+ |
| Denmark: | 15 |
| Finland: | K-15 |
| France: | 12 |
| Germany: | 16 |
| Hong Kong: | IIB |
| Ireland: | 15 |
| Japan: | PG-12 |
| Malaysia: | 18SG |
| Mexico: | B-15 |
| New Zealand: | R16 |
| Norway: | 18 |
| Peru: | 18 |
| Portugal: | 16 |
| Singapore: | NC-16 |
| South Korea: | 18 |
| Spain: | 18 |
| Sweden: | 15 |
| United Kingdom: | 15 |
| United States: | R |
The film was originally greenlit in 1999 with George A. Romero signing on as the films director and screenplay writer. When Sony and Capcom disapproved of Romero's script he was fired and the production was placed into development hell [1]. In early 2000, Sony hired Paul Anderson to write the film's screenplay. The film's producers liked Anderson's script and agreed to give the director's seat to Anderson. Production for the film began in mid 2000.
[edit] Reaction
The film was commercially successful, grossing $17,707,106 on its opening weekend (March 15-17 2002). The film gained $40,119,709 domestically and $102,441,078 worldwide [2]). Resident Evil received many negative reactions from the critics. The film appears only 34% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes [3]. Tom Sander from the South Florida Sun Senitnel stated "It's spooky, suspenseful and jump-out-of-your-seat scary". Dave Grove from Film Threat stated that "I'll bet the video game is a lot more fun than the film.".
The movie still gathers harsh criticism from fans despite the success of the movie series. Both this movie and its sequel appear on Roger Ebert's most hated films list where Ebert describes Resident Evil as a zombie movie set in the 21st century where "large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at...."
The film has also received a weighted average rating of 6.2/10 on IMDB [4].
Furthermore Paul Anderson has a reputation as a highly criticized director (see main article on Paul W. S. Anderson).
[edit] Sequels
After a largely positive response at the box office, the similarly successful sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse was produced. In June 2005 Screen Gems announced several more sequels would be made. There are currently 2 sequels planned, one of which is currently in Post-production.
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
- Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
- Resident Evil 4 (TBA)
[edit] Soundtrack
See Main Article: Resident Evil (soundtrack)
[edit] Novelization
- Resident Evil: Genesis by Keith R. A. DeCandido, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-9291-9.
[edit] Trivia
- The movie was to originally don the subtitle "Ground Zero", back when the movie was considered a prequel to the games. This was removed due to 9/11.
- The word zombie is never used during the movie.
- Paul Anderson also directed the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was also based upon a video game.
- Milla Jovovich became engaged to Anderson after making the movie.
- The mansion is known as the Spencer Mansion which is the main lab in the Arklay Forrest Region.
- The Red Queen's chamber password is "12177".
- Made $17,707,106 on its opening weekend March 17 - 19, 2002, finishing a distant second behind a record-setting $42 million gross by Ice Age.
- Like in the games, after something is switched on/off, something else happens elsewhere. When the Red Queen is deactivated for the first time, all doors elsewhere are opened.
- When Alice examines the mansion she goes outside and a flock of crows are visible for a very short moment; these crows were all digitized. In the video game series, flocks of crows are minor enemies that the player encounters throughout each game.
- Crew members had a hard time dealing with the dogs who kept licking their makeup, or occasionally shaking their coats.
- The scenes in the underground train station were filmed in the then unfinished station Reichstag of the Berlin U-Bahn.
- The main villain in the movie, Spence, is possibly a nod toward Ozwell E. Spencer one of three founders of the Umbrella Corporation.
[edit] Characters
- The lead character, Alice, is never referred to by name in the movie. In fact, closed captioning for the film always refers to her as "Woman". According to the novelization, her full name is Alice Abernathy, which is never mentioned in the sequel, either.
- The prologue was done by Jason Isaacs, who was not credited for his work. He also appears briefly in the film as a masked surgeon. The character of Dr. Isaacs (played by Iain Glen) in the film's sequel is apparently dedicated to/based on him.
The Umbrella Commando team:
One: This man's real name is unknown. He is the leader of the commando team, he dies fairly early in the movie when carrying equipment through the access hall to the red queens chamber.
Medic: Also unknown name, she is the only other female member of the commando team and acts as the teams feild medic. She also dies in the acces hall to the red queens chamber.
Commando #1: Probably the most unimportant member of the commando team. He dies in the hall with One and Medic.
Commando #2: Also an extremely unimportant member of the team. He is the second out the four people to die in hall with One, Medic, and Commando #1.
Chad Kaplan: He is a very significant member of the team. He is the team technological support man controls all machinary the team uses in the hive.
J.D. Salinas: His position in the team is secondary to Kaplans, he only carry's around a six shot revolver once in dining hall B, when he gave his assult rifle to one of the commandos heading to the red queen. He dies when he is pulled into a room full of zombies. He comes back later in the movie as a zombie attacking the other survivors.
Rain Ocampo: The most important member of the commando team. She is the only other female in the commando team. She is the teams most talented marksman and made special friends with J.D. before his death.
[edit] References
- The movie contains various references to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The first and most obvious being the main character's name, the second being the white rabbit used for testing the T-Virus. The wall that opens to the train station appears as a mirror (Through the Looking Glass). The Red Queen and her behaviour, wanting to behead/kill people, are also references to the book; it is worth mentioning that the Red Queen's first kill is actually a beheading. It is revealed in the commentary that Anderson originally intended all of the characters to have Alice in Wonderland counterparts but this idea was later scrapped though remnants of Alice-traits are still visible with characters like Kaplan (intended as the Rabbit who is worried about time).
- The movie ends with Alice waking up in Raccoon City, the city of the dead featured in the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis games. This is the starting point of the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The movie takes place in an alternate universe to the games and would occur before the first Resident Evil game if it were included in that timeline. The ending was shot in Toronto, Canada, where Apocalypse was also shot.
- A newspaper headline reads "The Dead Walk!". This is a reference to George A. Romero's movie Day of the Dead.
- At the end of the movie when Alice takes a shotgun out of a police cruiser, a "S.T.A.R.S." logo can be seen on the hood of another police car. The "S.T.A.R.S." are an elite police unit that make up the main group of characters from the original Resident Evil game.
- The front of the Umbrella train to the Hive reads Galexi-5000. This is the same train seen in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Outbreak.
- There is a shot near the beginning of the movie is a close up of Alice's eye. This is a direct reference to the first game. The close up eye shot is the title screen of the games.
- One of the smaller headlines on the newspaper at the end of the movie references the S.T.A.R.S. from the first Resident Evil.
- The creepy outdoor sound Alice hears is a reference to the outdoor sound heard in the Resident Evil remake.
- Beside the main appearances by zombies and dogs, the licker and crows are the only creatures from the games featured in the movie (though the crows in the movie are harmless and are just a reference by Anderson to the game series).
- Various camera angles throughout the movie reference the game series, e.g. The fight between Alice and the security guard.
- The movie borrows a plot element from Resident Evil 2 in which Leon and Claire have to escape the underground labs by taking the train and have a showdown with a large creature in the back of the car.
- On the newspaper at the end of the movie, the words "Murder in Raccoon! More Victims Dead!" are shown in the upper right corner. This is a reference to the same newspaper in the censored opening of the original Resident Evil game and the prologue chapter for the Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy novel.
- Near the beginning of the film, Alice examines a statue after the wind blows its cover off. This statue is similar in design to one in the mansion of the first game, and which contains the map of the ground floor.
- The survivors make their escape from the Hive with a countdown as they fight the 'final boss'. Almost every Resident Evil game also ends with a five minute countdown during which the final boss must be defeated.
- The laser trap would later be referenced in Resident Evil 4.
- When the team examines Matt's badge, the RPD is incorrectly referred to as the RCPD.
- When going back to the Red Queen's chamber Kaplan points out that the four bodies of the group's dead crew (from the previous "Glass Hallway Trap" sequence) are gone. This is a reference to a noticeable trait in the game, when a character leaves the room where they've killed zombies and then comes back in, the bodies that were once there have disappeared.
- The picture of Alice and Spencer from their wedding day is in the same style as the photos in the first version of the "Resident Evil" game: in black and white with the foreground image (in this case, Alice and Spencer) noticeably spliced onto the background (the room behind them).
[edit] George Romero's unproduced script
George A. Romero (who previously directed an ad campaign for Biohazard 2, [Resident Evil 2] in Japan in 1998) was considered to script and direct Resident Evil but was rejected by Screen Gems. The rejection was due to Bernd Eichinger, because both were having creativity differences on the project. Everyone else associated with the pre-production apparently liked Romero's script.
[edit] Plot
- The Arklay incident was intended to be filmed but was scrapped after Romero was rejected.
- In Romero's unproduced script, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield were chosen as the lead characters, and were involved in a romantic relationship.
- Many of the games' characters were included in Romero's script including Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers and Albert Wesker, who were similar in character to those in the game itself.
[edit] Trivia
- Romero, back when he was still signed on for the project, stated in an official appearance in Universal Studio's Talk City chatroom that he had his secretary play the entire game through and record the gameplay so he could study it as a resource.
[edit] The Zombies
To make sure that the zombies would move appropriately throughout the film, professional dancers were hired because they had better control over their body movement than most. The most notable is the axe-wielding, bald scientist. The famous entrance scene where a shot of the zombie's dislocated ankle is shown did not require any special effects, because the actor could actually dislocate his ankle. While computer effects were used on some zombies, much of the undead look was largely accomplished through make-up.
Paul Anderson hit upon an inventive way to avoid repetition in zombie behavior. He noted that when a director gives examples of how a zombie "should" move, almost every actor is going to do just that, with little variation. The resulting shot is laughable instead of terrifying. So, Anderson took a more laissez-faire approach: he told his actors to move however they thought a zombie would, given their condition, and left it at that. The actors, forced to be independently creative for their movements, came up with a wide variety of physical affectations, and the result was a large number of nonrepetitive zombies.
Regardless, there was a shortage of manpower throughout the production, which is why people otherwise not affiliated with the film were used as zombies. Most notably producer Jeremy Bolt appears as a zombie two out of three times during the film. He is seen in a brief shot where J.D. guns him down, and he also bites Rain's arm when she tries to save J.D. The stunt coordinator of the movie also appears as the dog trainer. Jeremy's girlfriend and sister also appear as zombies. Jeremy's girlfriend is the zombie who bites Kaplan's leg while his sister portrays the drowned scientist.
[edit] Game and Movie Differences
| Movie | Games |
|---|---|
| An Umbrella trained soldier named Alice is the main character of the movies. | Alice does not exist in the games. Instead, the main characters are originally (for most of the games) members of an elite police unit, S.T.A.R.S., many of whom later part ways to investigate and take down new international threats. |
| Nemesis was formerly Matt Addison. | Nemesis is the result of implanting an experimental parasite into a regular mass-produced Tyrant (a creature not featured in the film). |
| The mansion at the outskirts of the city is an Umbrella owned residence used as a cover for the facility hidden beneath. Only two people officially live there: Spence Parks and Alice. Many miles beneath the mansion is an Umbrella research facility controlled by an intelligent mother computer codenamed Red Queen. Most of Umbrella's T-Virus research occurs there and the employees live on the laboratory grounds. | The mansion on the outskirts is only one part of an expansive estate used to house Umbrella employees and conduct viral research in secret. The house was built by architect George Trevor for Umbrella President Ozwell E. Spencer and is nicknamed the "Spencer Mansion" because of this. An Umbrella laboratory facility (the Arklay Research Facility) is located in the mansion's basement level. There is no "Red Queen" computer and the labs were not connected to the city facilities. |
[edit] DVD contents
A Deluxe Edition DVD of Resident Evil was released on September 7, 2004. Deluxe Edition DVD features:
- Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Bulgarian.
- Available audio tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French, Spanish, Portuguese.
- Alternate ending with director Paul Anderson's video introduction.
- Clip compilation: Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
- Commentary by cast & filmmakers.
- Visual effects commentary.
- Costumes featurette.
- Featurette: Playing Dead: Resident Evil From Game to Screen.
- Scoring Resident Evil.
- Set design featurette.
- Storyboarding Resident Evil featurette.
- 6 exclusive featurettes: The Creature, The Elevator, The Train, The Lazer, Zombie Dogs and Zombies.
- Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
[edit] Alternate ending
Six months after the incident at Raccoon City. Here Alice wears a Matrix-like costume and goes to the Umbrella Corporation headquarters to search for Matt. She goes in and one of the guards asks what he can do for her. Before she can answer the security systems identify her and all guards draw their weapons. She consequently draws her own, the camera moves closer and a shot can be heard. A close-up of her closing eye is then shown. The alternative ending can be found here
[edit] Poster gallery
 US Poster 2002 |
 US Poster 2 2002 |
 Italian Poster 2002 |
 French Poster 2002 |
 Japanese Poster 2002 |
 Korean Poster 2002 |
 The DVD cover of Resident Evil film. |
 Movie Logo 2002 |
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Resident Evil Movies Online
- Resident Evil at the Internet Movie Database
- Resident Evil at Rotten Tomatoes
- Resident Evil at Box Office Mojo
- Resident Evil (film) at Yahoo! Movies
