Review of Resident Evil


Lewis Carroll, author of Alice¿s Adventures in Wonderland, once said: ¿Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.¿ Paul W.S. Anderson, writer/director of Resident Evil, unfortunately takes care of the sounds and drives the audience¿s senses into submission. From its opening, Resident Evil is a barrage of high-volume, shake-your-world crashing, bashing, and slashing. Even the drapes have sonic intensity. The film motors along with Marco Beltrami's and Marilyn Manson's score, a rave-fest with an upbeat vibe that over time becomes monotonous. Maybe the sound mix was an attempt to draw the audience¿s attention from Resident Evil¿s convoluted plot progression and meager character development.In adapting the Resident Evil video game to the silver screen, Anderson scripted references to Alice¿s Adventures in Wonderland; for example: the heroine (played by Milla Jovovich) is Alice, the entrance to the Hive (the Umbrella Corporation¿s underworld fortress of scientific experimentation) is known as the Looking Glass House; and Alice¿s foe is the Red Queen (The Hive¿s menacing supercomputer, given voice and form in the holographic likeness of an eight-year-old girl (Michaela Dicker), daughter of its designer). Maybe Resident Evil should be called Alice¿s Adventures in Zombieland; because, unfortunately, there's a lot that¿s tweedledum. When the Umbrella Corp¿s new end-life-as-we-know-it product (a not-so-smart business move), referred to as the T-virus, is released within the Hive, everyone from accounting to underwriting becomes the newly undead, and hungry for live flesh (apparently the flesh of other zombies lacks that special zing). A commando strike team is called upon to infiltrate the quarantined Hive and retrieve survivors. They bring Alice, who has a purpose in the operation, but, due to memory loss (a result of Red Queen¿s defense initiatives), she just can¿t remember what it is; or for that matter who she is. And after it¿s over, all 100 minutes of it, we still really don't know her; and that goes for the rest of the cast as well.

Some of Resident Evil's zombies.

In the production design department, one can't help but think of Aliens, but Resident Evil's run-of-the-mill characters and lack of coherent direction jettisons further comparison. Here, the characters look as if they're part of the production design. As Alice, Milla Jovovich, of course, is elegant and as revealing as one could hope for, but, like a runway model, there's an imposed distance to her character, a consistent coldness that hinders identification, not to mention understanding. As Rain, a key member of the strike team, Michelle Rodriguez has leering down pat; she can stare daggers through you. Rain is an intrepid character, but again, lack of background information prevents attachment to her. Simply, beyond being on a command team and trying to survive zombie attacks and getting the hell out of the Hive, what's Rain's real motivation? Why does she do what she does? More background info would have helped created the emotional attachment the filmmakers hoped there would be. As it is, were asked to sympathize with Rain, but there's little to latch on to. The other members of the strike team are, for the most part, standard. And in the Enemies Department, beyond the Red Queen and the zombies, there's... the licker, which, due to its unstable DNA, becomes the Uber-Licker; a mesh of squirming and twisted CGI, combined with an ear-splitting roar. Take the T-Rex's roar, make it more of a shriek, then turn up the volume and there you have it.Without getting into particulars (if you see the film, I don't want to spoil a scare) Resident Evil does, however, succeed with a couple shock moments and a couple short sequences. The Zombies provide two or three scares, effective enough to cause a few people to jump. And likewise, the elevator scene and the scene in the Laser Hallway must be acknowledged for their payoffs, even if character responses and reactions are questionable.The aforementioned moments are rare effective scenes in an otherwise convoluted, undeveloped narrative. Anderson may have strived for an electric intensity, but what comes across is frenzied deficiency &#Array; all action no essence; all glitter and no dramatic spark.

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