Resident Evil Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)March 18th, 2002
RESIDENT EVIL
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Alice (Milla Jovovich, "Zoolander") has barely come to after passing out in the shower of her large, remote mansion, when she, along with a husband she doesn't remember, is rounded up by a group of commandos and taken by underground train to a 'hive' where a computer named the Red Queen has run amok, killing all Umbrella Corporation research facility employees in the latest vidgame to film adaptation, "Resident Evil."
Seems Alice was also a victim of the Red Queen, who gassed the mansion which served as the secret entryway to Umbrella's hidden facility. While three members of the troop, including cool leader One (Colin Salmon, "The World Is Not Enough"), are killed by a slicing, dicing laser en route to the computer, a nervous Kaplan (Martin Crewes) pulls its motherboard after a beseeching entreaty from its holographic incarnation of a little girl. With entryways reopened, the survivors make a horrible discovery - the dead are now viscous flesh-eaters whose bite is infectious.
Seems the Red Queen was protecting the outside world from infection by the T-Virus, which was let loose into the atmosphere of the hive by a mercenary traitor with a plan to make millions from the antidote. Writer/director/producer Paul W.S. Anderson takes pages from the likes of "Alien," "Deep Blue Sea," "The Night of the Living Dead" and "2001" and presents a thoroughly unoriginal, but fast-paced and entertaining genre B-flick.
With a too-pounding industrial score by Marco Beltrami ("Scream") and Marilyn Manson acting as a horrific metronome, the action never lets up. Alice discovers a pack of zombie-Dobermans and dispatches them with some well-placed flying kicks. Zombies are strafed, punched and pummelled while a rebooted Red Queen enforces a race against time. A mutant early experiment-gone-awry known as the Licker is unleashed to goose up the getaway. The film's opening sequence, which shows the hive's shutdown, is a tensely editted palm-sweater.
Jovovich shows a lot of presence as the tough zombie warrior with a humanistic streak that may be a cover for prior crimes. "Girlfight's" Michelle Rodriguez is typecasting herself into a corner with her pugilistic pout. The rest of the cast is comprised of somewhat familiar faces who do little to distinguish themselves, although Salmon's calm recalls the lone, brave black hero of Romero's touchstone zombie film.
"Resident Evil" is a no-brainer that's fast, flashy and fun. The apocalyptic epilogue portends that this game isn't over.
B-
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