Resident Evil (2002):

Starring:

Milla Jovovich - Alice

Colin Salmon - James "One" Shade

Michelle Rodriguez - Rain Ocampo

Eric Mabius - Matt Addison

James Purefoy - Spence Parks

Martin Crews - Chad Kalpan

Heike Makatsch - Dr. Lisa Addison

Jason Isaacs - Dr. William Berkin / Narrator (Uncredited)

Director:

Paul W.S. Anderson (Death Race; Alien Vs Predator)

Synopsis:

A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident. 

Review:

So much like the Underworld franchise, I'm going to do the majority of the review on this one & then as I move on to the other films in the franchise I will just give my views on the differences, the better, the worse & etc. So this film was the very first DVD I ever bought (although now I have moved on to the Blu-ray. Also if you don't include Wrestlemania 18). This is honestly a very good zombie movie even if it ideally is a video game turned into a film. This is before Alice has all these telekinetic powers & super human strength, this is when she is simply an extremely well trained human who has the ability to defender herself against anything that is thrown at her. As they story progresses through the franchise she becomes more of a mutant & super human turning it from a zombie franchise into video game Esq story lines, plots & cinematography.  The characters aren't anything special however once you get past the lead of Alice. For a man who cannot stand to look at Milla Jovovich I sure do see a lot of her films. This might be one of the only ones that I actually do like, not so huge on the next 4 but this one she is actually tolerable. The rest of the cast just plays out as your typical military special forces cannon fodder who are just there to slowly get picked off one by one by the zombies leaving only the most important of characters. The actors portraying said military cannon fodder aren't bad at all by any means, they are just not important enough because of what they are involved in the story to do. This movie has great variety of zombies from some who are missing pieces of their heads to others with no arms everything you would expect to see from a zombie film. The computer graphics are a tiny bit poor only because it was 2002 & the higher quality we are use to now, but even for 2002 they aren't that great. The creatures known as "Lickers" sometimes look good but other times because they are designed to be coming out of a stationary back ground looks very shitty. So in starting on this franchise again it's a very good zombie movie, has a good solid plot, great actions & builds suspense all the way to the end as everything is revealed. The very ending however begins the never ending downfall to becoming a franchise of poorly done video game movies that consistently get worse. All four films (so far) have great soundtracks starting with this one featuring some of (at the time) the biggest names in hard rock & nu-metal. Overall it's the best in the franchise.

Rotten Tomatoes: 34%

Flixster: 73%

69%

Lead Acting: 10/15

Supporting Cast: 8/10

Plot: 8/10

Compared To The Genre: 8/10

Cinematography:12/20

Intrigue: 15/20

Extra: 8/10