 |
|
|
|
Resident Evil |
 |
It’s the living vs. the undead in the gory horror
thriller Resident Evil, a brutal grudge
match of genetically engineered proportions.
Chaos ensues when a huge underground
research facility known as the Hive gets
contaminated by a vicious virus designed to
reanimate dead cells. A supercomputer
named Red Queen seals all of the employees
inside in an effort to contain the leak. Chances
of survival: zero. Soon after, a team of military
commandos enters the Hive to isolate the
virus, only to learn that the deceased workers
have been transformed into ravenous
zombies who add to their number by infecting
healthy humans. To save the earth, the task
force has three hours to navigate mazes and
obstacles, and work their way from one level
to another amid flurries of violence. Goals
include finding an anti-virus, defeating the
computer and making it back to the surface.
Sort of sounds like a video game, doesn’t it?
It’s hardly any wonder. This sci-fi
adventure/horror flick is loosely based on a
popular game in which players blast the
rotting flesh off of mutated zombies.
•
positive elements: On separate
occasions, characters in peril put the group’s
safety ahead of their own. The film condemns
irresponsible corporations and scientists who
think they’re above the law, and play God
through genetic engineering. An opportunist
planning to sell the deadly virus to the highest
bidder is vilified.
•
sexual content: Before Alice can don
a robe, the camera catches some side breast
nudity. Quick-cut flashbacks of a sexual
encounter show a couple rolling and clinching
in bed. Rain uses a crude term for
intercourse.
•
violent content: When the virus
escapes and the workers find themselves
trapped, some are gassed, others drown and
still others die in runaway elevators (it’s
implied that a woman half in/half out of an
elevator door gets decapitated when it
restarts). Disfigured, decomposing zombies
converge on soldiers, clawing and biting
them. The heavily armed task force fights back
by karate-kicking them or mowing them down
with round after round of gunfire (it seems a
severed spinal column or massive head
wound is all that can stop them, so bullets
mainly just slow the creatures down). A
zombie takes an axe to the head (implied).
Mutated canines and a gruesome monster
with a huge tongue chase humans. The latter
catches up to one and devours his "fresh
DNA," leaving a bloody mess. Four soldiers
get caught in a hallway and, hard as they
might try, can’t evade a laser beam which
cleanly decapitates one, slices another in half
at the midsection, takes off the third’s fingers
and finally shifts from a straight line to a
crosshatch pattern, which dices the last officer
like someone in a Tom & Jerry cartoon
running through a chain-link fence.
•
crude or profane language: About 30
profanities or obscenities, a third of which are
f-words. Also several misuses of the Lord’s
name.
•
drug and alcohol content: People
inject themselves with an anti-virus, but
there’s no recreational drug or alcohol
use.
•
conclusion: Creepy. And those
employees-turned-zombies are really
angry! Perhaps it’s because they’re stuck
roaming around for eternity with hundreds of
rotting coworkers. Or it could be all those
hours of unpaid overtime. Regardless, when
they go on a rampage, it gets ugly. Jumping
out of the corners of the screen. Baring their
bloodstained teeth. Although extremely
graphic in places, Resident Evil seems
equally interested in giving audiences sudden
jolts. An obnoxious, over-modulated rock
score pounds home every piece of action. In
the end, it was far too violent, gory and
ridiculous to make me care about who
sabotaged the lab or why. I just wanted the
rampage to end.
|
|
