Resident Evil (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Resident Evil Alternative title: Resident Evil: Genesis |
| Original title | Resident Evil
Working title: Resident Evil: Ground Zero |
 | |
| Country of production |
United Kingdom Germany United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2002 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 16 JMK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul WS Anderson |
| script | Paul WS Anderson |
| production |
Bernd Eichinger Paul WS Anderson |
| music |
Marco Beltrami Marilyn Manson |
| camera | David Johnson |
| cut | Alexander Berner |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
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Successor → |
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Resident Evil is a Sci-Fi - Action - Horror from the year 2002 by Paul WS Anderson with Milla Jovovich in the lead role. The real film is based on the video game series of the same name .
The live action film series spawned five sequels: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016).
action
In the early 21st century , the Umbrella Corporation is the largest industrial company in the United States . The powerful corporation has great financial and political influence in society and is widely regarded as a leading provider of computer technology , biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. However, unnoticed by the public, the company makes its huge profits in the areas of defense technology, biological weapons and genetic engineering .
In a secret research laboratory, called Hive (English literally: beehive), around 500 employees work securely underground. There they developed the so-called T-virus, which is able to revive dead cells . A stranger steals samples of the T virus and its antidote. In order to then cover all traces, he releases the virus in the laboratory. This reaches the entire laboratory complex via the ventilation system. The central computer equipped with artificial intelligence, known as the Red Queen , notices this incident a little later, then locks all the doors and kills all people within the complex by flooding the rooms with inflowing Halon gas to prevent people and thus the T virus escape from the complex.
In a villa near the town of Raccoon City , a young woman - Alice - wakes up from an unconsciousness and cannot remember anything for the time being. A man - Matt Addison - appears, shortly afterwards an armed team storms the mansion and takes them both through a hidden entrance to an underground train. There they find the also unconscious Spence, who is apparently Alice's husband. When he comes to, they learn that the villa is the disguised emergency entrance to the Hive, that Alice and Spence, as security guards of the Umbrella Corporation, are supposed to protect the entrance and that their marriage is merely a cover. Her memory loss is the result of a nerve gas that was sprayed by activating the Red Queen's security system . The train below the villa leads to the Hive, which is just below the town of Raccoon City . The team's task is to shut down the apparently out of control central computer Red Queen .
They manage to switch off the central computer by means of an electromagnetic pulse , but before that four people are killed by its defense mechanism. By switching off, however, all doors were unlocked, which freed the killed employees, who have since mutated into zombies. These now hunt the living people to eat them. In addition, time is of the essence, as the villa's access lock to the Hive will automatically lock in around an hour and then no longer open.
To find an escape route to the surface, they have to interview the Red Queen and reactivate it. Under threat of permanent shutdown, they manage to obtain information about an escape route through supply shafts. After getting back to the lab, Alice slowly regains her memory, and she remembers that there is an antidote to the T-virus and where it was stored. However, the antidote is no longer there. As it soon turns out, Spence is responsible: He's the stranger who also tried to steal the T-Virus.
Matt and his sister Lisa Addison, who worked at the Hive, had tried to educate the public about the illegal work at the Hive. For this Lisa should smuggle out a sample of the T-Virus, whereby she was supported by Alice, who provided her with secret access codes. However, Spence had overheard Lisa and Alice and knew of their plan. He forestalled them by stealing viruses and antidotes to monetize them and by releasing a sample of the virus in the laboratory to cover up his act. Unaware that the Red Queen's security system extended beyond the hive, the nerve gas knocked him out before he could disappear.
He hid the T-Virus and the antidote on board the train that brought the team to the hive. Now that Spence is blown, he escapes back to the train, but is killed there by a being called the Licker, created by the Umbrella researchers by injecting the T-virus directly into living tissue. In contrast to the undead, who only pursue their basic urge to eat, the Licker has intelligence and can also develop further after absorbing foreign DNA .
Alice and the others manage to secure the T-Virus and the antidote and board the train, but an attack by the Licker kills all but Alice and Matt. When they return to the mansion, Matt begins to mutate due to an injury inflicted by the Licker. Before Alice can inject him with the antidote, Umbrella researchers separate them and put them in quarantine. Matt begins to transform and one of the researchers explains that he is needed for the "Nemesis Program" and that work at the Hive will resume.
At some point, Alice suddenly wakes up in the Raccoon City hospital . She is alone in a large room and connected to medical equipment with cables. She tears off the cables, leaves the deserted clinic and stands in the last shot in the completely devastated city. The T virus appears to have surfaced and spread. Alice prepares to fight for survival.
background
- The term zombie does not appear in the original English language , but it is mentioned in the German synchronization.
- In the original English, the voice of the narrator is spoken by Jason Isaacs .
- The original version of the script contained a different ending, which was then discarded for cost reasons: It provided for Alice to break into the Umbrella headquarters and free Matt (part of this scene has already been shot and is included as bonus material on DVD). Eventually, about six months after Matt's liberation, Alice and Matt drive in an armored vehicle towards destroyed New York City in search of survivors.
- Anderson took the concept from the game of naming Umbrella employees by color. In order of the credits they are: Mr. Gray, Mr. Red, Ms. Black, Dr. Green, Dr. Blue, Dr. Brown, Mr. White, Ms. Gold.
- Alice in Wonderland and Alice Behind the Mirrors by Lewis Carroll is one of his favorite books, and he also said he saw structural similarities between Resident Evil and the stories of Carroll, as in both of them a heroine embarks on a miraculous journey underground and I encounter strange and uncanny things there. Numerous allusions in the film and the name Alice of the protagonist were references to Carroll's stories intended by Anderson. So also the name of an important figure ( Red Queen , in the German version of Lewis Carroll called Rote Königin ), the checkerboard pattern, a white rabbit (used here to test the T-Virus), the figure Kaplan, who looks like Carroll's white rabbit (in the original: White Rabbit ) always cares about the time, as well as the entrance to the underworld hidden behind a mirror.
- Although the film has its own plot and the protagonist Alice does not appear in the video game templates, the film shows a number of parallels to the games. Means of transport such as trains are a recurring stylistic device in the Resident Evil games. These, too, usually become the scene of attacks and combat operations. The chronic shortage of ammunition also plays a decisive role in films and games.
- The Red Queen's defense mechanism is part of a level in Resident Evil 4, which was released three years later . Here, too, it is important to avoid a laser.
- The film's title was originally supposed to be Resident Evil: Ground Zero . After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the connection of the term Ground Zero with it, it was decided against the name in the film title.
- The cost of production has been estimated to be between $ 32 million and $ 33 million . The film grossed around 102 million US dollars in cinemas worldwide, including around 40 million US dollars in the USA and around 5 million US dollars in Germany.
- The cinema release in the USA was on March 15, 2002, in Germany on March 21, 2002.
Emergence
Bernd Eichinger acquired the film rights to Resident Evil for Constantin Film in 1997 from game developer Capcom . George A. Romero was to direct and write the script. His draft script, which oriented the plot closer to the games, was rejected. Romero claimed that only Bernd Eichinger was against his script, whereupon he left the project in 1999 due to "creative differences". The video game developer Yoshiki Okamoto , who was involved in the film production as executive producer , made it clear in an interview with the magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly that Romero's script was simply bad and he was fired for it. The script was later published on the Internet.
Shooting began on March 5, 2001 and ended on May 19, 2001. The film was shot mainly in Berlin , in the Berlin Adlershof studio and in a few original locations in the area. The then unfinished Bundestag underground station (former planning name: Reichstag) on Berlin underground line 55 served as a backdrop for access to the laboratory complex (Hive), the distinctive pillars of the underground station can be clearly seen in the film. In Potsdam , Lindstedt Palace was used for scenes from the villa, while the Potsdam barracks of the army riding school in Krampnitz also served as a backdrop. The final scene at the end of the film, showing the devastated Raccoon City , was shot in Toronto .
Reviews
- Andreas Borcholte wrote on Spiegel Online : Some people have already failed to film a successful computer game. With the cinema version of the zombie shooter "Resident Evil" produced in Germany, however, an exciting horror thriller succeeded that even gave the genre new impulses.
- Hans Schifferle wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : Almost all men, good or bad, brave or cowardly, turn out to be quite weak and pale in “Resident Evil”. The women are the heroines. With the pragmatic and tough fighting girl Rain, played by Michelle Rodriguez, Anderson overdoes it a little. Rain's all too cool sayings sometimes seem artificial and penetrative. Alice, however, played by Milla Jovovich, casts a spell. [...] Jovovich plays Alice very well: as a dazzling noir character who appears damaged and lost in a penetrating and glamorous way. [...] Milla Jovovich says she wrote a quote from " Alice in Wonderland " in her script, which would precisely outline her character. It says it cannot return to the surface of the earth as long as it does not know who it is.
- Sebastian Handke wrote in Die Tageszeitung : The “survival horror” pattern adopted from the game has no day page, no progression and of course no end - only levels in which survival counts. Anderson is more of a designer than a director, and the cool and claustrophobic surface effects give away the money and effort that went into it. Only a few highlights remain (very fine: skinned Dobermans). The not exactly sublime sound design alone creates a thrill. "Resident Evil" is the first not unsuccessful adaptation of the game logic. But " Alien " could do better, and the games only came afterwards.
- Lexicon of international film : A film adaptation of a popular video game trimmed to excitement, which is quite impressive in terms of features and effects, but has little to offer apart from external action and shootings. The characters in particular remain pale throughout.
Awards
- The film was nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Saturn Award 2003 for Best Horror Film , as was Milla Jovovich in the Best Actress category .
- Film editor Alexander Berner was nominated for the German Camera Prize 2003.
Novel to film
- Keith RA DeCandido : Resident Evil. Genesis . Panini Verlag , Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8332-1130-X .
literature
- Patrick Steinwidder: Perfect Girls: The computer game adaptations "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", "Resident Evil" and "Final Fantasy" , in the magazine Medien-Impulse, ed. from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science, Art and Culture, December 2003 (about the first part of the film adaptation of Resident Evil )
Web links
- Resident Evil in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Resident Evil atrotten tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Resident Evil . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ http://www.imdb.de/title/tt0120804/business
- ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=residentevil.htm
- ↑ Unused script version by George A. Romero (English)
- ↑ movie review Milla in Monsterland
- ^ Film review Alice in Bunkerland
- ↑ Film review Virtual Transfer
- ↑ Lexicon of International Films - Resident Evil: Genesis