_resident_evil_art_paintings.html

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

Resident Evil is a 2002 science fiction horror film loosely based on the Resident Evil series of survival horror games developed by Capcom, and the first in the series of the Resident Evil trilogy. Borrowing elements from the Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 video games, the film follows the amnesiac heroine Alice, along with a group of Umbrella Corporation commandos, as they attempt to escape a secret underground facility full of zombies. It was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and was released in the United States on March 15, 2002, and in Japan on August 31, 2002. The film stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, Michelle Rodríguez as Rain Ocampo, Eric Mabius as Matt Addison and James Purefoy as Spence Parks.

Resident Evil was followed by two sequels: Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction. Apocalypse was released on September 10, 2004, and Extinction was released in theaters on September 21, 2007. Neither of these films were directed by Anderson, but he did write the scripts and function as one of the producers.

Plot

The film begins in The Hive, an underground research facility located beneath nearby Raccoon City. A man, loading the T-virus and its cure into a case, then tosses a vile of the virus inside a lab. Minutes later, the automated security system in the facility 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 then open a mirror-door to an underground train station, discovering Spence, another unconscious victim suffering amnesia, while on transport. Alice recognises 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.

Alice and Spence, as well as the commandos, are explained to be 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 is also 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 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, attempted 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 protagonists 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 a an injury inflicted by the Licker, and the two are seized by Umbrella scientists. They scientists mention sending Matt to the "Nemesis Program", an allusion to the next film. Alice beats many of the scientists but is ultimately subdued. As the struggle fades to black, the words of one of the head scientists are heard, "I'm reopening the Hive--I want to know what really went on down there."

Sometime later Alice wakes up at the Raccoon City Hospital, having gone through extensive testing, and breaks out only to find the city in chaos and abandoned. She picks a shotgun from a nearby police car and prepares to face the coming apocalypse and the terrors that lie ahead.

Pre-Production

The film was originally greenlit in 1999 with George A. Romero signing on as the film's director and screenplay writer. Romero previously directed an ad campaign for Biohazard 2 (Resident Evil 2) in Japan in 1998. Capcom producer Yoshiki Okamoto told the editors of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" that "Romero's script wasn't good, so Romero was fired". Romero, when he was still signed on for the project, stated in an official appearance in Universal Studio's Talk City chatroom that he had his secretary play the entire game through and record the gameplay so he could study it as a resource. The screenplay originally revolved around the plot of the Arklay incident and included characters from the Resident Evil video games. Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield were the lead characters, involved in a romantic relationship. Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers, Ada Wong and Albert Wesker were to also appear. The ending would to the film would have been similar to that of the Resident Evil video game.

When Sony and Capcom disapproved of Romero's script, production was placed into development hell. In early 2000, Sony hired Paul Anderson to write the film's screenplay, and the film re-entered pre-production stages.

Casting

In early 2001, Michelle Rodriguez, James Purefoy and Milla Jovovichwere the first actors signed on the project. David Boreanaz was originally intended to portray the male cop lead of Matt Addison, however turned down the role to continue work on the WB series Angel.Boreanaz suggested that he was in negotiations to have a smaller role in the film claiming "Resident Evil is still there, a possibility, So, yeah, I'll see what happens",, however, he later declined the role. The role of Matt Addison was then given to Eric Mabius who was later cast in March 2001.

Heike Makatsch was also cast as Matt Addison's sister Lisa Addison, who was an employee working for Umbrella's Hive facility.

Reaction and aftermath

The film was commercially successful, grossing $17,707,106 on its opening weekend (March 15-17 2002). The film gained $40,119,709 domestically and $102,441,078 worldwide. Resident Evil received many negative reactions from the critics. The film appears only 34% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Tom Sander from the South Florida Sun Sentinel stated "It's spooky, suspenseful and jump-out-of-your-seat scary". Dave Grove from Film Threat stated that "I'll bet the video game is a lot more fun than the film.".

Both this movie and its sequel appear on Roger Ebert's most hated films list where Ebert describes Resident Evil as a zombie movie set in the 21st century where "large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at...."

After a largely positive response at the box office, a sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse was released in 2004. In 2007 the third film Resident Evil: Extinction was released. Anderson did not direct the films but instead functioned as the scriptwriter and producer on both. The sequels were directed by Alexander Witt and Russell Mulcahy respectively. After the production Anderson and Milla Jovovich were engaged

Game history

The original Resident Evil made its debut in the U.S. on the Sony Playstation. It was both a critical and commercial success, leading to the production of two immediate sequels, Resident Evil 2 in 1998 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in 1999, both also for the PlayStation. A port of Resident Evil was released for the Sega Saturn and a port of Resident Evil 2 was released for the Nintendo 64. In addition, ports of all three were released for Windows. The fourth game in the series, Resident Evil Code: Veronica, was developed for the Sega Dreamcast and released in 2000 (followed by ports of 2 and 3). Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube versions were later produced in the form of an updated version entitled Code: Veronica X.