![]() ![]() They're all competent and motivated individuals, and they mostly remain collected and focused on their tasks even as members of team are quickly killed off by the lab's computer defenses or the freaky monsters roaming the halls.Īnderson directs with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of pretension. Refreshing for the genre, none of the characters are bumbling idiots going places they shouldn't go or doing stupid things that get them killed. ![]() It also allows the main character to develop new skills and combat techniques along the way, mirroring the progression of the game. In other words, just a typical Monday at the office.Īs Alice recovers bits and pieces of her memory, the audience learns the backstory of the corrupt Umbrella Corporation and her role in their plans, a clever narrative device that provides a convenient excuse to explain the plot. Once inside, they discover the aftermath of a horrible genetic experiment gone awry that turned everyone inside the facility into undead brain-munchers intent on ripping the squad limb from limb. With barely enough time to put on a sexy red dress and combat boots (an outfit that would soon become iconic), poor Alice is almost immediately swept up by a team of badass commandoes, who inform her that she's a highly-skilled security operative and drag her along on their mission to infiltrate "The Hive", the secret high-tech research station beneath the mansion where she awoke. The character doesn't even have a name in this first movie, but it's no spoiler to reveal that she's called Alice in the sequels. The stunningly beautiful Jovovich stars as a mysterious woman who wakes up sprawled in a shower with no idea who she is or why she's there. High art this ain't, but the result is a lot of fun. Casting a pair of hot babes (Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez) and working loosely from the structure of the game, Anderson crafted a gloriously silly fright flick with exciting action sequences and plenty of juicy gore. It was a massive hit and spawned a string of follow-ups that have extended to several subsequent game consoles.Įnter director Anderson, who hadn't made a profitable picture since 'Mortal Kombat' and was eager to return to the game-movie genre. It was an extremely fun actioner with clever puzzles and mazes, a very moody atmosphere, and even some legitimate scares (anyone who's played the game will admit to jumping out of their chair after first encountering the zombie dogs). Borrowing extensively from George Romero's famous 'Living Dead' movies, the game involved a paramilitary squad exploring a large mansion and the secret underground laboratory beneath it while fending off hordes of flesh-eating zombies. When importing the game to North America, apparently someone at the Capcom corporation with a limited vocabulary assumed that "biohazard" was a Japanese word and changed it to 'Resident Evil', a meaningless phrase that doesn't make much linguistic sense but sounds cool enough. 'Resident Evil' began life as a survival horror game for the first Playstation console whose original title in Japan was 'Biohazard'. None of these are good movies, per se (in fact, 'AVP' is pretty damn awful), but they're all slick and efficient, relatively coherent, and pander to horror and action junkies successfully enough to turn a profit. Predator', and of course 'Resident Evil'. Anderson seems to have had the best run at it, making unexpected hits out of game-based pictures 'Mortal Kombat', ' Alien vs. The history of the films-based-on-games genre has not been particularly distinguished, with most falling to hack directors working from incompetent scripts and tiny budgets (see: the complete works of Boll, Uwe). It's a self-perpetuating cycle of cinematic cannibalism. ![]() ![]() Considering how liberally many video games lift their ideas from movies, I suppose it should come as no surprise that, when experiencing a drought of creative inspiration, the movies return the favor by lifting ideas from video games. ![]()
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