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Resident Evil (film)

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Resident Evil
Movie Poster
Directed byPaul Anderson
Written byPaul Anderson
Produced byPaul Anderson
Jeremy Bolt
StarringMilla Jovovich
Michelle Rodriguez
Distributed bySony
Running time
100 min.
Budget$32,000,000

Resident Evil, (also known as Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil: Ground Zero, and Resident Evil: Genesis) is an American movie shot mostly in Germany and based upon the survival horror series of the same name. Is part one of the quadtrilogy Sony and Screen Gems has planned. The following titles are Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Afterlife. A fourth sequel is currently planned and may be out in 2007.

Tagline: A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake.

Plot overview

Template:Spoiler The movie is said to take place prior to the original game. In this film, the Umbrella Corporation have sent a special operations unit to their biological warfare lab hidden beneath a mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City to find out why contact has been lost. En route, the team discover Alice and Spence, two Umbrella employees with amnesia, a complex full of zombies and a computer system gone mad.

At a high tech lab, office staff and researchers are going about their business. Suddenly, containment protocol is set in motion by the Hive computer. We see researchers drowning in a sealed lab, and people in their offices suffocating as a chemical is injected into the air. In one stuck elevator people are trying to jam the doors open. Suddenly, they all go quiet and hear people screaming and an elevator crashing in the shaft next to them. A woman tries to squeeze through the hole in the door, but it is too small, she is stuck. Suddenly, the brakes release and the elevator falls.

A woman wakes up in a shower, confused. (Her name is Alice, however this is only revealed in the closing credits.) She walks around the huge mansion, but she cannot remember her name, does not know where she is, or what she is doing here. A helicopter drops a few Umbrella troops and they advance upon the house. They find her and decide to take her along while they go towards the Hive. The mansion, it seems, is the gateway to an underground railroad that leads into the Hive, a research facility located hundreds of feet below the streets of Raccoon City.

The team finds two other men along their journey, one of whom is apparently Alice's husband, and take them with them on the way into the Hive.

They find the Hive complex deserted and eventually the team reaches the access point for the Hive computer. But the Hive does not want to be invaded and activates a laser protection system that cuts most of the team to pieces.

After the team inside is dead, the remaining soldiers along with Alice manage to get access to the Hive's central computer room. They are confronted by a hologram dubbed The Red Queen, a manifestation of the Hive's intelligence in the image of the original designer's daughter.

The only way to stop the Hive is to reboot the computer. The Red Queen she says doing so will have very bad consequences. They shut down the computer anyway; all over the complex the lights go out, and all the door locks are released, releasing scores of zombies.

The team learns that the Hive, operated by the world's most powerful company, was designed as a research laboratory for biological weapons including viral weaponry. One strain could reanimate the dead into mindless zombies, or cause mutation in living beings.

The Hive deployed its containment protocol in order to make sure the virus would not escape. An accident resulted in the virus being exposed to the air and distributed throughout the complex via its ventilation system. An environmentalist had wanted to steal information on the Hive and expose it to the public. A guard at the Hive overheard this and had decided to steal some viral weaponry to sell to the highest bidder. He threw one of the vials as he left a research room, the vial broke, and the airborne virus was released. But he became stuck close to the exit when the sealing of the Hive began and the gas knocked him out and removed his memory. The Umbrella team finds the brother of that environmentalist (it is learned that Alice was involved in that scheme while Spence, one of the men found in the Hive, is the corrupt guard) and the whole group tries to escape the facility, pursued by mutated dogs and a humanoid creature called a "licker."

One by one, the remaining team members die or are infected by the virus, which they learn turns people into zombies whether they are alive or dead. Alice finds an antidote for the virus and the last two survivors — one of whom is Alice, the other the brother — get out just before the Hive seals itself for good.

As soon as they leave the mansion, they are grabbed by men wearing biological protective suits. The order is given to restrain them, and as the brother of the environmentalist is taken, he shows signs of mutation, and the order is given to put him in the Nemesis program. Also, orders are given to prepare a team and go into the Hive to find out what happened.

Alice is taken to the Raccoon City Hospital. She wakes up on a table and removes all the wires around her. She walks out, and in one area of the building we see a zombie walking around. She walks outside and sees that the city around her is devastated. She grabs a gun and gets ready for the Apocalypse. (This last sequence is shown again at the start of Resident Evil: Apocalypse.)

Cast

Actor/Actress Role
Milla Jovovich Alice
Colin Salmon One
Michelle Rodriguez Rain Ocampo
Eric Mabius Matt Addison
James Purefoy Spence
Martin Crewes Kaplan
Michaela Dicker Red Queen

Novelization

Trivia

  • The word zombie is never used during the movie.

Template:Spoiler

  • The movie ends with Alice waking up in Raccoon City, the city of the dead featured in the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis games. This is the starting point of the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The movie takes place in an alternate universe to the games and would occur before the first Resident Evil game if it were included in that timeline.
  • Paul Anderson also directed the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was also based upon a video game.
  • Milla Jovovich became engaged to Anderson after making the movie.
  • The lead character, Alice, is never referred to by name in the movie. According to the novelization, her full name is Alice Abernathy, which is never mentioned in the sequel, either.
  • A newspaper headline reads "The Dead Walk." This is a reference to George A. Romero's movie Day of the Dead.
  • Romero (who previously directed an ad campaign for the Japanese release of Resident Evil 2) was considered to direct Resident Evil but was rejected by the production studio.
  • The mansion is known as the Spencer Mansion which is the main lab in the Arklay Forrest Region.
  • The Arklay incident was intended to be filmed but was scrapped after Romero was rejected.
  • The Red Queen's chamber password is "12177."
  • James Purefoy's character (Spence Parks) is based on Albert Wesker who also stole the T-Virus.
  • Recieved $17,707,106 on its opening weekend March 17 - 19, 2002.
  • The front of the Umbrella train to the Hive reads Alexi-5000, a reference to Alexia Ashford from Code: Veronica. This is the exact train seen in Resident Evil 2.
  • Like in the games, after something is switched on/off, something else happens elsewhere. When the Red Queen is deactivated for the first time, all doors elsewhere are opened.
  • There is a shot near the end of the movie of Alice's eye close up. This is a direct reference to the first game. The close up eye shot is the logo/title screen of the games.
  • 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.
  • When Alice examines the mansion she goes outside and a flock of crows are visible, these crows were all digitized.
  • The creepy outdoor sound Alice hears is a reference to the outdoor sound heard in the Resident Evil remake.
  • According to Romero, the rejection of his script was due to Bernd Eichinger. Everyone else associated with the pre-production apparently liked the script.
  • Beside the main apperances by zombies, the licker is the only creature beside the zombie to appear in the movie.
  • Crew members had a hard time dealing with the dogs who kept licking the blood and meat off themselves.
  • The presidents of Capcom Japan and America have cameos as zombies.
  • Various camera angles throughout the movie reference the game series, e.g. The fight between Alice and the security guard.
  • Borrows plot elements from Resident Evil 2 where Leon and Claire had to escape the underground labs by taking the train.

Game and Movie Differences

  • Movie: An Umbrella trained soldier named Alice is the main character of the movies.
  • Game: Alice does not exist in the games. Since she has direct contact with Nemesis from RE3 and we never see her throughout, she cannot exist.
  • Movie: Nemesis was formerly Matt Addison.
  • Game: Nemesis is some guy chosen from a group.
  • Movie: 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. Meters beneath the mansion 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.
  • Game: The mansion on the outskirts is only one part of an expansive estate used to house Umbrella employees and conduct viral research in secret. There is no facility beneath it. In fact, the only subterranean facility is Birkin's lab seen in Resident Evil 2. There is no "Red Queen."

DVD contents

File:Re1dvd.jpg
Resident Evil: Deluxe Edition.

The Deluxe Edition of Resident Evil was released on September 7, 2004. Deluxe Edition DVD features:

  • Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese.
  • 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 Licker, The Train, Zombie Dogs and Zombies.
  • Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

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. You see her going 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 you hear a shot. Then you see a close-up of her closing eye.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Resident Evil.



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