Console to Screen: Resident Evil (The Right Way)

Resident Evil created
survival horror.

I've written so much about how terrible the Resident Evil series has been, so one more article won't hurt. It's been 12 years since hack director Paul W.S. Anderson "shat out" the most awful and disgraceful adaptation of all time and it's set to conclude in the next film...possibly. The only unfortunate part for me is that I couldn't officially call it the Worst Adaptation of All Time because it's moderate success. However, it's story is so weak that they just keep referring to the Umbrella Corporation without ever really considering their business plan. You figure if everyone in the world is a monster or a zombie, that wouldn't help the economy. Resident Evil gave birth to survival horror, but now it's trying to cling to relevancy. Where did all of it go wrong?

Plot:

The first story was set in a mysterious mansion.
The first movie...went another direction.

Go back to basics of what the story was. Ditch the Alice storyline that was never in the game for the REAL story of an elite special attack team called S.T.A.R.S. that are caught in a mansion while investigating the disappearance of the Alpha squad. Little by little, the squad of Chris Redfield, Barry Burton and Jill Valentine find out that the mansion is full of zombies and monsters. Eventually, they learn that mansion is a research facility that's trying to create the ultimate weapon and founded by their S.T.A.R.S. member Albert Wesker.
In Resident Evil 2, the virus took to streets of Raccoon City, but enter two new protagonists, Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Claire journeyed to Raccoon City to find her brother and (CLICHE ALERT) Leon came for his first day on the job. In the city, they encounter a daughter (Sherry) of the mutated scientist (William Birkin) and Ada Wong, a woman with her own agenda. They learn that Birkin created the G-Virus which is more powerful than the T-Virus from the first story. Each character had their own storyline and which unlocked a second story continuing in an alternate timeline that expanded the story. Birkin's metamorphosis over several stages in the game were terrifying an haunting. Add-in a mysterious man that shows up in the B story and it's really creepy.

Cast:

Leon Kennedy.

What could have been...

Instead of wasting time on a made up character, this could have been where Leon Kennedy took center stage. Kennedy was the lead character in Resident Evil 4 and a key character in Resident Evil 6. Hmmm... still no Alice. Now, take a look at the picture of Leon Kennedy. Who could have played that back in 2002 and done a good job. That's right, Ryan Gosling. Now a leading man and an Oscar Nominated A-lister, fat chance trying to get him if they rebooted the series to do it right. Can't think of another guy, but he would have been great.
Oddly, Ally Larter as Claire Redfield wasn't a bad choice, but her character was as emotionally vacant as a Taylor Lautner monologue.

What It Has Going For It:

Lisa Trevor was a minor character, but never touched on
by any RE movie.

If Resident Evil didn't go awry and actually stuck to a coherent story, people would have seen a movie about a corporation trying to create biological weapons. When the company's experiments go wrong and it takes a massive PR hit, Umbrella is undermined and their resources are plucked by other groups. Now that sounds a lot like nuclear weapons and the breakdown of the Soviet governments, which made for plenty of spy stories in the 90s. It also showed that there are other groups than just a corporation...which cares about profit.
Every RE story had an "ultimate weapon" that players had to overcome and different creatures. In RE 1, you fought Tyrant. In RE 2, it was the MANY phases of William Birkin. There's always something BIG at the end. In Paul WS Anderson's first Resident Evil film...there was a Licker. Really? In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, it was Nemesis...sort of as Nemesis was someone Alice knew and she was trying to rescue him. It wasn't until Resident Evil: Extinction that a creature was used like Tyrant and even that one was screwed up. There's also the minor characters that the movies didn't show like Lisa Trevor, a mutated girl chained to a board and meandering around in RE 4. There was other creatures not used in the movies like the Hunters. The Hunters intro in the original RE was one of the creepiest surprise in ANY RE game (as scene below at the 2:45 mark). They were also the most eerie of the RE soldiers. The Hunters would walk towards you and then attack with great speed and strength when close.

Who Could Pull This Off:
Any choice is better than Paul WS Anderson. I would hate using this guy as my template of bad directors...but I can't name a movie he's done without throwing up a little in my mouth. He took Alien vs Predator, named it AVP and made us miss Renny Harlin and Stephen Hopkins directing. Anyway, RE is a combination of horror and action. You'd have to choose which you'd want it to be...unless you get Zack Snyder. Sure Snyder has made his name directing 300, Sucker Punch and Watchmen, but his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake is just the flavor the real Resident Evil series would need. Now, how to get him? Wait to see how Superman: Man of Steel works out (the SECOND reboot of the DC hero) and if Superman is successful, it only helps. Reboots are usually after audiences forget the originals just enough...well except for Spider-Man.

Like I've said, if Resident Evil is to be rebooted, it'll likely go the route of being truer to the original stories as most reboots do. Hell, even James Bond went to the "closer to the source material" road and look at how successful Daniel Craig's James Bond series has been. Albert Wesker would actually be scary instead of an annoying guy with an accent. I actually need to stop writing this because the Resident Evil movies remind me of the words "wasted potential"...

Resident Evil: Abomination

Resident Evil: Retribution
opens September 14th to
insult movie goers.

In 1996, Sony's released Resident Evil for their new Playstation system and immediately spawned a new genre: survival horror. It pit an elite group of police officers Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) against zombies and monsters as they're trapped in a mansion trying to solve the reason behind bizarre cannibalistic murders in the nearby area. This game was the first game that you were required to watch with the lights out. The creaking floors as a zombie walked after you, the slow methodical footsteps of the hunters and the feeling that you character was going to die at any minute terrified gamers. However, THIS article isn't about the magnificent game from 1996. This is about the highest rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes at a WOEFUL 34% and the movie franchise that followed it. This was the centerpiece of Off The Marc Movies' "Why Video Game Movies Haven't Worked".

Director Paul W.S. Anderson said in the interview that he had a "successful video game franchise", but that's like asking Michael Crichton fans of the Jurassic Park books what they thought of...well any of the movies. Sure, Steven Speilberg made two of the highest grossing movies of all time, but then they made Jurassic Park III. This set a new level for bad for any adaptation until Paul W.S. Anderson adapted Resident Evil. Now Anderson has made bad adaptations before RE (Mortal Kombat) and after (Alien vs. Predator), but Resident Evil takes the cake and releases it's mind-boggling FIFTH installment this week. Unfortunately Anderson has proved that movie goers are going to shell out millions of dollars just to see an awful film that is loosely (and use the term loosely) based on a video game series that's trying to find it's way BACK to stardom. There were many errors made in the first film... and just continued as the series moved on.

The first Resident Evil movie began with the incident at the Umbrella Corporation's lab that creates a lockdown and traps employees inside. There is a scene where a handful of terrified people try to escape from an elevator and predictable one gets decapitated. Flash to a running shower where Alice is awaking from being knocked out. She gets dressed and meanders around her mansion wondering who she is with complete amnesia. Ah amnesia...works for soap operas. Why not here? Anyway, Alice is confronted by a special forces security team that takes her (and a man suffering from amnesia as well and a random guy) down into The Hive. Sound like the video game, yet? Well, the team progresses further down in an effort to destroy the Red Queen (the computer who runs the facility with the holographic projection of a child with an English accent). If you were a fan of the series, the closest you got to getting this film to be an adaptation was a mention of Umbrella Corporation, the T-Virus and the climactic fight with the Licker. That's it. Really?

Still sounds like the Resident Evil game? No? That's because it was set up as a dark re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. Was there any doubt? Alice is taken down "the rabbit hole" to face the "red queen" and then has to battle her way out of Wonderland. This actually sets a new low for lazy. Anderson didn't even adapt the right story. None of the games' characters were in the movie and it used EVERY cliche to drive it's story. Amnesia, a reporter looking for his sister and the signature Paul W.S. Anderson open-ended ending that leaves the story open for a sequel. That said, this was probably his best of his shitty endings. None could have been worse than the end of Mortal Kombat where the emperor shows up and says, "I've come for your souls". Back to RE, this adaptation was so bad that Anderson made up his own main character: Alice (Milla Jovovich) who battles T-Virus affected dogs with her bare hands and kicks them without getting scratched which would have spread the virus to her.  This was like adding a "more interesting" character than the main characters in the original story. Therefore, if Anderson was in charge of adapting the Bible, he'd have made Jesus a supporting character if he mentioned him at all. Um...What?

The original Resident Evil game was great, building excitement all the way through and getting to a sensical finale where you discover that one of your own people (Albert Wesker) was involved with the Umbrella Corporation to develop the perfect biological weapon (Tyrant). Tyrant rebels against his master (Wesker) and if you were Jill or Chris, you had to fight off Tyrant and eventually kill him with a rocket launcher! That plot makes sense and builds to a great climax. The movie...went in another direction. The "other guy" regains his memory, realizes that they could sell the virus on the open market, tries to cure himself and is eaten by the Licker. Then the group has to battle the Licker on a train to get back to the surface. Of course, the Licker scratches the reporter and he is taken away by Umbrella Scientists to be put in the "Nemesis Project" as Alice is taken away. Alice wakes up in an operating room to find the place has been ravaged and stands in the ruins of Raccoon City with a shotgun.

Milla Jovovich's Alice was never a character in the
Resident Evil stories, but is the center of the film franchise.

The truth of the Resident Evil movie series is that it's more bastardized than the Transformers franchise. Just because it says it's brand name, it'll make money. The odd thing is that Anderson keeps referring back to the games even though most gamers feel that he's ruined the film adaptions by NOT being faithful to the story in any way. This series never scared anyone, but yet still gets horror movie audiences. The action is cliche and so-so at best, but still gets that audience. It's still unclear if he has blackmail on the people that spend millions of dollars, but these movies continue to be churned out. Furthermore, it's Rotten Tomatoes critics AND audience scores continue to descend. In fact, in the new edition brings back characters that no one gave a shit about. That's like bringing back Jar Jar Binks after Phantom Menance. Oh... wait... How this series makes more movies and makes a profit is actually pretty insulting to use all. It's actually makes the Total Recall remake look like a good idea. Rumor has it that he's trying to acquire the rights to make Castlevania. He'll promptly make it about someone else besides Simon Belmont and cast Milla somewhere in there again.