Resident Evil (2002)

Resident Evil is a 2002 science fiction horror film loosely based on the game series of the same name. Borrowing elements from the Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2, the film follows the amnesiac heroine Alice along with a group of Umbrella commandos as they attempt to escape a secret underground facility full of zombies. The film was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and was released in The United States on March 15th, 2002, and in Japan on August 31st, 2002.

Resident Evil was followed by 5 sequels Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil Extinction (2007) Resident Evil Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil Retribution (2012) and Resident Evil The Final Chapter (2017). Anderson continued his involvement in the series, writing and producing the sequels, however, leaving directing to Alexander Witt and Russell Mulcahy.

Plot
In The Hive a top-secret underground genetic research facility owned by the Umbrella Corporation located beneath Raccoon City, a man loads the T-Virus and its cure into a case, then tosses a vial of the virus inside a lab. Minutes later, the facility's security system kills everyone inside through various means. Elsewhere, Alice later awakens in the shower of an empty mansion with no recollection of her identity. As she explores the mansion she is confronted by a man, however the two are immediately seized by a group of commandos. The man, Matt Addison, reveals himself to be a police officer, but the commandos handcuff him regardless. The team opens a mirror-door to an underground train station, discovering Spence, another unconscious victim suffering amnesia. Alice recognizes Spence from a wedding photograph in the mansion, and looking at her wedding ring, she sees the inside of it reads: Property of the Umbrella Corporation.

James "One" Shade is the head of the commandos and explaines that Alice, Spence, and the commandos, are employees of the Umbrella Corporation, and it was the Umbrella Corporation that sent the commando team to investigate why the Hive's defensive computer, the Red Queen, killed all Umbrella staff. She was responsible for releasing a nerve gas in the mansion which has caused Alice and Spence's amnesias, but throughout the film Alice begins to have glimpses of her past. The crew find their way to the Queen's chamber; however, as the bulk of the team attempt to disable the Red Queen, they are trapped in the corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber and are torn apart by a laser grid. This leaves Alice, Spence, Kaplan, J.D., Rain and Matt as the only survivors. Alice and Kaplan shut the Queen down, but in doing so open the doors of the facility, releasing the undead staff and experiments from the laboratories in which they were imprisoned. Rain becomes infected after receiving multiple bite wounds, and a battle ensues in which Matt and Alice are separated and J.D. is killed. Alice discovers that Matt was not a police officer, and used the title as a cover in his goal to help take down the Umbrella Corporation. Matt, with the help of his sister, Lisa, attempts to smuggle a sample of the T-Virus, the cause of the zombies, but the two were unsuccessful. Matt believes this to be the fault of Lisa's contact, who supposedly betrayed her. Throughout the film Alice has flashbacks, showing herself as Lisa's contact, but Alice is not fully aware of her role in the events.

Soon, the survivors are once more united at the Queen's chamber and are forced to switch her back on for aid in an exit. Kaplan overrides the Queen's circuit-breaker, causing the next time she is disabled to be permanent, and the Red Queen somewhat agrees to aid the team. As Alice and the others try to escape through the maintenance tunnels, they are ambushed by zombies. Rain becomes severely injured and begins to weaken, while Kaplan is separated from the rest of the team and is assumed dead. On their way to the train, Alice remembers that an anti-virus exists that could cure the ailing Rain. However, arriving at the lab, they realize that the vials containing the T-Virus and anti-virus are gone. Spence, gaining his memory, is then shown as the person who released the virus. He points a gun at the survivors, and threatens them, trapping the others in the laboratory and making for the train where the case containing the anti-virus is. Before he can inject himself, however, he is killed by a Licker, a mutant-creature created by injecting the T-Virus directly into living tissue. The Queen offers to spare Alice and Matt's life if they kill Rain, who has been infected for the longest period of time. As the Licker attempts to bash through the lab window to get to them, the enraged Alice smashes the Queen's monitor, and there is suddenly a power-outage. The laboratory door opens to reveal Kaplan, who has permanently disabled the Red Queen.

The remaining four survivors hurry to get to the other end of the underground railway before it shuts down in a quarantine attempt. However, the Licker is on the train; it scratches Matt and kills Kaplan. Alice battles the Licker and Rain, who, despite being given the cure, has turned into a zombie. Matt and Alice emerge as the only survivors, and escape at the last moment when the doors close. Matt begins to suffer a mutation from an injury inflicted by the Licker, and the two are seized by Umbrella scientists. The scientists mention sending Matt to the "Nemesis Program"; a role detailed further in the film's sequel. Alice attempts to fend off the scientists, but is ultimately subdued. As the struggle fades to black, the words of one of the head scientists are heard, "We're reopening the Hive, I want to know what really went on down there. Just do it." Sometime later, Alice awakens at the Raccoon City Hospital, having gone through extensive testing and confined within a locked observation room. After escaping the room and wandering the hospital's empty halls, Alice exits the building to find Raccoon City abandoned with apparent signs of chaos everywhere. The headline of an old newspaper clearly exclaims "The dead walk!" Alice acquires a shotgun from a nearby police car, anticipating danger ahead, at which point the film ends.

Cast

 * Milla Jovovich as Alice
 * Michelle Rodriguez as Rain Ocampo
 * Colin Salmon as James "One'" Shade
 * Eric Mabius as Matt Addison
 * James Purefoy as Spence Parks
 * Martin Crewes as Kaplan
 * Heike Makatsch as Dr. Lisa Addison
 * Michaela Dicker as Red Queen
 * Jason Issacs as Narrator / Dr. William Burken

Pre-production
Constantin Film bought the film rights for a Resident Evil movie on January 1997 and they hired screenwriter Alan B. McElroy to write the script. When PlayStation Magazine published in May 1998, an article titled Resident Evil The Movie, about McElroy's script and described it as being similar to the first game with action and horror packed and also very violent, some changes were made such as there was no mention of S.T.A.R.S and the Umbrella Corporation. The plot was centered about a special forces team sent by the government to rescue scientists from the mansion laboratory after the S.W.A.T team that was sent in earlier was killed, but during the story, they would realize that entire mission was a trap for them and that they are specimens in a medical experiment. There were also diifferences such as Brad was an imposter named Mike who is searching for his girlfriend Becky that was in the original S.W.A.T team, Jill naked in a shower and the Tyrant turns out to be mutated Wesker. The special forces team included all the characters from the first game. The script also included all the game's monsters and the team would have to fight each of them. McElroy's script was rejected becuase Robert Kulzer stated that by the time Resident Evil 2 came out, the script would have been dated and boring.

In 1998, George A. Romero was hired to write the script and direct it after he directed in a commercial for Resident Evil 2 that only aired in Japan. Shinji Mikami says that he was a fan of George A. Romero and says that the Resident Evil franchise was influenced by his Living Dead films. Romero's screenplay was based on the first Resident Evil game and included characters from the games and he wrote 6 different drafts of it. However there was a difference is that Chris Redfield is not a S.T.A.R.S member and he was a Native American. However it was rejected as well because the censors would have given it an NC-17 rating. Bernd Eichinger was the one behind the final decision of rejecting the script.

In early 2000, Jamie Blanks, who 2 years earlier directed successful psychological slasher film Urban Legend was involved to direct Resident Evil film which was about S.T.A.R.S team fighting against monsters created by virus outbreak in Raccoon City. This version was rejected as well.

In late 2000, Anderson was announced as director and writer, and Resident Evil re-entered pre-production stages. He had already gained reputation when, in 1995, his low budget film Mortal Kombat became one of the first commercially successful video game adaptations. After playing Resident Evil, he saw its cinematic potential and wrote a script titled Undead, which he described as "a ripoff" of the game. Bernd Eichinger, head of Constantin Film, was enthusiastic, so Anderson developed it into the script for Resident Evil, which then became the screenplay for the film.

Anderson stated the film would not include any tie-ins with the video game series as "under-performing movie tie-ins are too common and Resident Evil, of all games, deserved a good celluloid representation"

Casting
In early 2001, Michelle Rodriguez, James Purefoy[and Milla Jovovich were the first of the cast to be signed on the project. David Boreanaz was intended to portray the male cop lead of Matt Addison; however, he turned down the role to continue work on the WB series Angel. The role of Matt Addison then went to Eric Mabius who was cast in March 2001, along with Heike Makatsch, who was cast as Matt Addison's sister Lisa Addison, an employee working for Umbrella's Hive facility. The producer Jeremy Bolt's sister and girlfriend appears as zombies in this film.

Locations
In early March 2001, it was announced that half of the film would be shot in Adlershof Studios in Berlin and its surroundings. Principal photography began on March 5th, 2001 at numerous locations including the then unfinished station U-Bahnhof Bundestag of the Berlin U-Bahn, Landsberger Allee, Kaserne Krampnitz and the Schloss Linstedt.

Music
The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson during mid-2001. Manson described the score and soundtrack as being more "electronic" than his other previous work.

Effects
During production, professional dancers were hired to star as zombies as they had better control of their body movements. While computer effects were used on some zombies, much of the undead appearances were accomplished through make-up while their movements were a more laissez-faire approach, as Anderson told the actors to move however they thought a zombie would, given their conditions. Whilst filming, there was a shortage of manpower where the available dancers were not enough to represent the required numbers of undead, however some of Capcom's executives and several of the film producers including Jeremy Bolt agreed to make appearances.

Reception
The film was commercially successful, grossing $102,441,078 worldwide. However, it received many negative reviews from critics such as Roger Ebert.