Resident Evil (2002)

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This week, Trevor and Kyle review Paul W.S. Anderson's, Resident Evil (2002)!

Largely divorced from the then relatively nascent lore of the Capcom video game series from which it was adapted, Anderson's Resident Evil is a noisy nu metal nightmare that contains fleeting moments of brilliance.

Massively profitable, but critically maligned, the success of Anderson's Resident Evil would nevertheless result in a series of 6 films, most of which directed by Anderson himself, and all of which are headlined by his wife, actress Milla Jovovich.

Owing much of it's structure to Aliens (1986), Resident Evil suffers greatly from bearing a similar tension to release ratio to Cameron's sci-fi horror classic, while lacking the budget or creativity to deliver payoffs equivalent to the showstopping moments of James Cameon's film.

Lacking in both monsters and gore, like Anderson's own Mortal Kombat (1995), the film comes across as somewhat toothless, though in a manner that is irksome unlike in the case of the former, PG-13 rated film.

Shot with confidence, and with decent production values, Resident Evil bears the director's signature aesthetic flair, however it's hyper-kinetic editing and ultra-aggressive soundtrack often feel out of step with it's action choreography, resulting in a film that is all too obviously trying to be more entertaining than it actually is.

Possessed of a couple of memorable sequences, Resident Evil is not a total loss, however it's reputation in 2022 is largely that of being the first in a decade and a half's worth of Jovovich/Anderson productions, but more specifically, a passable video game adaptation from an era of truly horrendous video game adaptations

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