Reel Horror

Resident Evil (Special Edition) asin: B00005JL3A

Resident Evil is based upon Capcom's highly successful video game series of the same name. It is basically a prequel to the first installment of the video game franchise. It offers a view of the events that took place before any of the game's story lines.

Milla Jovovich plays the role of Alice, who wakes up at the start of the movie with a temporary case of amnesia. She does not find her surroundings familiar and she is confronted by a rescue group on a mission to an underground lair. The lair, called "The Hive", is a centre for research run by the evil Umbrella Corporation. The rescue group take Alice with them to the hive. Once there they find out that a terrible accident has apparently happened.

The Umbrella Corporation had developed the T-virus which would re-animate dead bodies. This virus was somehow unleashed within The Hive. The rescue group must find any survivor and contain the threat. As Alice's memory slowly returns to her she discovers that she knows more about the incident than she expected. She is able to help the rescue squad try to escape The Hive and the Red Queen, the supercomputer that runs it. When the T-virus was let loose, the Red Queen killed everyone who was in the Hive at that time in an effort o quarantine the infection. With all of the Hive's staff returning from the dead and the Red Queen refusing to let anyone out, Alice and her cohorts must fight hungry zombies to survive while Alice battles with her foggy memory.

This movie contains a lot of familiarities from the game series such as the licker, the zombie dogs and Raccoon City. A multitude of effects were utilized including CGI, traditional makeup effects and people who could actually dislocate their own body parts in order to seem more like sluggish, messed up zombies.

The characters, while not from any of the games, are not given quite enough time to let you really identify with them. They are basically generic characters with minute, individually distinguishable characteristics. The exception being Alice. As the main character, we get to see her watch the events unfold and try to make sense of what is going on around her. Jovovich does an excellent job performing with that sense of being lost but remaining calm and collected.

I think anyone who likes the games would like this movie. It does have a lot of action in it as well. But some who have not played the games may be turned off by it's plot. Which might seem to have some holes in it when you do not have some of the knowledge of the Resident Evil story which is only obtained by playing the games. I thought this movie was great fun to watch and would recommend it to any fan of zombie movies if not horror in general.