Resident Evil (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Resident Evil | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Paul Anderson |
| Produced by | Paul Anderson Jeremy Bolt Bernd Eichinger David Johnson (cinematographer) |
| 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 is a 2002 science fiction/horror film adaptation of Capcom's survival horror series Resident Evil which was first released in theaters on March 15, 2002. The movie itself was also mostly shot in Germany. It was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, who formerly directed Mortal Kombat, and stars Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius and James Purefoy.
The film is followed by two sequels: Apocalypse, which was released on September 10, 2004, and Extinction, which as of December 2006 is in production and it is scheduled to be released on September 21, 2007. Neither of these films were directed by Anderson, but he did write the scripts and function as one of the producers.
The film borrows several elements primarily from the first two games: Resident Evil, and Resident Evil 2.
Tagline: A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The film opens to a man tossing a glass tube containing a blue substance inside a lab. Minutes later the automated security system kills everyone in the facility through various means ranging from drowning scientists in a sealed lab, to suffocating trapped employees with halon gas to dropping an elevator full of people.
A woman, Alice, later awakens in a shower inside a mansion with no recollection of her identity. As she explores the mansion she is captured by a man and the two are immediately seized by a group of commandos. The man grabbing Alice turns out to be a police-officer, Matt Adison. The commandos open a mirror-door to an underground train-station. On the train they discover another unconscious victim suffering amnesia, a male (Spence). The woman recognises this man from a wedding photograph in the mansion. Looking at her engagement ring the inside of it reads: Property of the Umbrella Corporation.
The two amnesiacs as well as the commandos turn out to be employees of the Umbrella corporation. The train takes them to The Hive, an underground research facility located beneath nearby Raccoon City, revealed to be the place where the horrific events at the beginning take place. The commando team has been dispatched to figure out why the Hive's defensive computer, Red Queen, killed all Umbrella staff. She is also responsible for launching a nerve gas in the mansion which has caused Alice and Spence's amnesias, but throughout the film Alice begins to have glimpses of her past.
The crew find their way to the Queen's chamber, but as the bulk of the team attempt to disable the Red Queen they are trapped in the corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber and killed through an intricate laser-trap, leaving Alice, Spence, Kaplan, J.D., Rain and Matt as the only survivors. Alice and Kaplan shut the queen down, but open up the doors of the facility. This shutdown cause a power outage and releases the undead staff and experiaments from stasis. As they return to the train the rest of the survivors are attacked by the zombified Umbrella staff. Rain recieving extreme amount of bite infections. A heated battle ensues in which Matt and Alice are separated and J.D. is killed.
Alice discovers that Matt attempted to smuggle a sample of the T-Virus which has caused the Umbrella staff to change into zombies with the help of his sister Lisa. Throughout the film Alice has had flashbacks of Lisa and knows that she was her contact, but Alice does not know her own full role in the events. The survivors are once more united at the Queen's chamber where they're forced to switch her back on in order to discover the true nature of the virus, the zombies as well as an exit. As security Kaplan disables her circuit-breaker, causing her to fry if she attempts to double-cross them.
As Alice and the others try escaping through the maintenance tunnels, Rain becomes severely injured and begins to weaken. Kaplan is separated from the rest of the team. On their way out they pass through the lab from the beginning. Alice remembers that an anti-virus exists that could cure the ailing Rain, but arriving at the lab they realise the tubes of T-Virus are gone. This however jogs Spence's memory who is revealed to be the person who threw the test-tube in the beginning. He traps the others in the lab and makes for the train where the case containing the anti-virus is. Before he can inject himself however, he is killed by a Licker, a mutant-creature created by injecting the T-virus directly into living tissue. The Queen offers to spare Alice and Matt's life if they kill Rain who has been infected the longest. As the Licker attempts bashing through the lab window to get to them, the enraged Alice smashes the Queen's monitor and suddenly there is a power-outage. The lab door opens to reveal Kaplan, who fried the Red Queen and helps the others to escape.
Our heroes hurry to get to the other end of the underground railway before its other end shuts as programmed to do so to prevent the virus from escaping the facility. However, the Licker is on the train and kills Kaplan after scratching Matt in the arm. Alice manages to impale the licker's tongue in the grating on the floor, leaving it stuck over a trap-door. She yells to Matt to open the door and he is forced to kill Rain, who in spite of being given the antidote turns into a zombie (possibly because she recieved so many various bites and scrathes the Antidote was useless). As her corpse hits the release-button the trapdoors open and the Licker is killed by being dragged along the railway, catching fire.
Matt and Alice escape at the last second when the doors close. Matt begins to suffer a mutation from the Licker's scratch and the two are seized by Umbrella scientists. Sometime later Alice wakes up at the Raccoon City Hospital, having gone through extensive testing, and busts out only to find the city abandoned. She picks a shotgun from a nearby police-car and prepares to face the terrors ahead as the camera pans away. This is where the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse takes off.
[edit] Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| Milla Jovovich | Alice |
| Michelle Rodriguez | Rain Ocampo |
| Eric Mabius | Matt Addison |
| James Purefoy | Spence Parks |
| Colin Salmon | One |
| 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 |
| Poland: | 15 |
| 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 film's 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. The movie was primarily filmed in Germany and scenes in the underground train station were filmed in the then unfinished station Reichstag of the Berlin U-Bahn. Also, the movie was to originally have the subtitle "Ground Zero", back when the movie was considered a prequel to the games. This was removed due to 9/11.
Anderson initially toyed with the idea of the film being an allegory to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but the idea was not followed through. Despite that, the movie contains various references to the work. 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; 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 film's soundtrack was composed by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson. While Beltrami contributed more classic elements to the score, Manson was responcible for the more eerie, electric and industrial sounds. Ironically Manson revealed in an interview (on the DVD) that he was inspired by Alice in Wonderland.
[edit] The Zombies
To make sure that the zombies, though word zombie is never used during the film, 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 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 non-repetitive 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. Bolt's girlfriend and sister also appear as zombies; his girlfriend is the zombie who bites Kaplan's leg while his sister portrays the drowned scientist.
[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 Sentinel 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.".
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].
[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, however the web-site for Resident Evil: Extinction now states it will be the final film in the series.
[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] References to the Games
- The movie ends with Alice waking up in Raccoon City, the city from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis games. This is the starting point of the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
- 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 Alexi-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 title screen of the first game.
- 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.
- 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.
- A variation of the laser trap would later be implemented in the game 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).
- 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.
- Jason Isaacs features in the prologue, but was not credited for his work. He also appears briefly in the film as a masked surgeon (a supposed reference to William Birkin). The character of Dr. Isaacs (played by Iain Glen) in the film's sequel is apparently dedicated to or based on him.
[edit] Game and Movie Differences
| Movie | Games |
|---|---|
| An Umbrella trained soldier named Alice is the main character of the movies. | Alice does exist in the game Resident Evil, but she isn't a playable character. She is invincible monster created by the Umbrella Corp. >>This is False, the invincible creature created by Umbrella is named Lisa Trevor, Not Alice.<< |
| 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. Approximitely one mile beneath Raccoon city, connected to the mansion by an undreground train, 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.
[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 Capcom. Capcom Producer Yoshiki Okamoto told the editors of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" that "His (Romero) script wasn't good, so Romero was fired". HouseofHorror.com 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] 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 but different in appearance or role to those in the game itself. i.e. Jill was the captain of S.T.A.R.S. rather than Wesker, Chris was not member at all, instead being a Native-American man living on a nearby farm, and Barry was going to fill the same role but portrayed as an African-American.
- The ending would have approximated what happens in the games, but two other characters would have been confirmed dead: Barry was going to be shot dead by Wesker, and Wesker would meet his end when the Tyrant impales him and severs his head in a closing door.
The entire script may be viewed 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
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Resident Evil • Apocalypse • Extinction |
