Movie Review: Resident Evil

Since the coming of the second film is nigh, I have decided to publish an old review of Resident Evil that I wrote for an English assignment last year. It really isn't much of a review, more of an insight into the creation of the motion picture, and its correlation to the directors and developers.

Grab some coffee, nibbles and take a read...

It all started in 1996. A newly released game named ‘Resident Evil’ begun turning heads across the globe. The basic premise of the story was that a flesh-eating virus had escaped its laboratory confines and had begun infecting the workers, turning them into mindless zombies. For some odd reason, the storyline and plot twists (Speaking for myself) were absolutely compelling. Even today, I am still extremely fond of the ideas, which can be achieved with such a minimal idea. When Zombies make it to the big screen, I always hope that the genre will be done some justice. How very wrong could I be?
January 1998: Avid Resident Evil fans were racing to local game stores to buy the second instalment in what was a pioneering series in the Survival Horror genre. Reports were coming in that an armed heist at a game store had halted all traffic in the area and thousands of Japanese nerds had their acne spontaneously explode upon securing their purchase within a blue baggie. After completing the game several times, I poked around the double-jewel CD case and stumbled upon some text that told of a competition; the prize being a walk-on part in the... *gasp* Resident Evil movie! I completed Resident Evil 2 a few more times and I gave it the grand job of sitting still on my shelf for long periods of time to collect 4 inches of dust. Unbeknownst to me, in July, there was already someone on the cards to both write and direct the movie.
No word from Capcom. No word from the media. In around October of that year a draft that none other than George A. Romero wrote, surfaced and appeared to have been given a green light. Wow! In October '98, I didn't even know who George Romero was, let alone the fact he was writing the script for the Resident Evil movie. For what it was, it was Resident Evil. Basically, the script was Resident Evil, minus a few details. Having read the script myself, I was unable to put it down. The direction was good, the atmosphere was good, but the one thing that could have been touched up was the dialogue.
A month later, it turns out Romero's script was reviewed and fed neatly through the shredder, to be turned into pet bedding. Word on the street is that it 'Didn’t feel like Resident Evil.’ ‘Most of the emphasis was on hordes of the Undead and that wasn't what Resident Evil was.' They fired him from the project in early '99, but it seems he wasn't completely gone. He stepped up to the Directors plate, while someone else was drafted to re-write the script. Yoshiki Okamoto revealed some information about it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo '99 (E3) stating, "People are trying to get the script done, but we have to be careful because it has to fit the Resident Evil feel." Apparently they didn't want lots of gore, but obviously they didn't know what Romero was capable of and it certainly wasn’t a PG rating. This is beginning to seem like a conspiracy, you'll find out why later. On a side note, the shredder I mentioned earlier belonged to Mr. Okamoto, since it seems he is the one responsible for canning Romero's script. It's July '99, and it appears they are now looking for a new director, so Romero really had been fired. No more news surfaced that year until December, even rumours started running dry.
November '00 eventually arrives with word of a new director at the helm. Paul 'Mortal Kombat' Anderson -- of all people -- was slated to both write and direct the picture, with what seems, full script control. With Romero fully off the project Anderson was able to do whatever he wanted (Or so it seemed). A strange script was written involving a young woman named Alice (?) who wakes up one evening to find she has a bruise on her collarbone and a ring on her finger (?). She is inside a Mansion which serves as a gateway to a giant lab complex deep under Raccoon city called, 'The Hive' (?). Anyone lost already? Gee, that sounds like Resident Evil! But wait.... There's more! The virus was released by a homicidal supercomputer named 'The Red Queen,' which has an aristocratically sounding English holographic representation of itself, which tries to scare the characters like a poorly animated Haunted House skeleton. So that’s it. Resident Evil The Movie was fed to the cat, which in turn threw it up all over cinemas worldwide, coating the isles in a disgusting mix of wooden dialogue and fur. The fans did the same as the cat and puked after seeing the poor attempt made, and the public paid their four pounds (I certainly did), bought some salted popcorn and sat down to watch Resident Evil. Amongst the yawns and munching was the sound of unconvincing zombies, actors who were as wooden as my coffee table and a plot (Which was supposed to be based on the game) that was unimaginative. This movie could have been something more. A whole lot more…

Coming soon is a preview/review of the second film! (Which will be shite...)