Video game movies have been around since the video game industry boomed after its initial crash. Considered to be a guilty pleasure and one of the more accurate adaptations was the original Mortal Kombat (1995). Yes, it was cheesy and it didn’t gain high reviews, but people still enjoy it today. Since then video game movie adaptations have been a thing for the last couple decades and probably will continue onward. The level of interest movie studios has had though seemed to have gone in waves. By the end of the 1990s it wasn’t as profitable until this movie came out. The weird thing is how it started. Reason for this is that this movie was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson…the same director of Mortal Kombat (1995). What are the odds he reinvigorates a genre once every decade or so?
The plot of the film is that sometime in the future, a national conglomerate company called The Umbrella Corporation is the sole provider for all consumers of basic needs. However, behind the scenes they also produce high weapons grade items and bio-hazards. When a deadly mutagen is released inside the company’s facility and goes into lockdown, a taskforce is sent in to fix the issue. Tagging along with them are what seem to be three ordinary civilians. Two of which, Spence (James Purefoy) and Alice (Milla Jovovich) have a case of memory loss and don’t recall how they were involved to begin with. The premise is the most intriguing part of the movie, story wise. As for the rest, there’s not a whole lot to get behind.
There are plot holes that turn up later on that don’t make sense when looking at the full story. Employees of the umbrella corporation work in a facility underground and are not allowed to be above ground. Yet, the initiation of this whole plot happens above ground involving employees of said company. That’s not to say Paul W. S. Anderson did not do his research on the brand though. To be able to write and direct this feature, he made sure to dive deep into the games. With that said, there are several references throughout the movie to the video game itself. To that, fans of the video game series must have been marginally happy with those nods of nostalgia. Despite those clever callbacks, charming characters are hard to find among all that’s on screen.
Coming out on top of the cast as not only the lead actor, not only as an action star but also meeting her future husband (the director); Milla Jovovich plays the only character a viewer might root for. The other cast members like Colin Salmon, James Purefoy, Eric Mabius, Michelle Rodriguez and Martin Crewes act their way through the movie just fine, but their characters just aren’t written with anything special. The same could be said for the special effects, more specifically the CGI. Being that CGI had been shown to blend fairly well with physical backgrounds by this point, it makes no sense why some of the visuals look like they were still from the era of Mortal Kombat (1995). Maybe these aspects were also homage to the original Resident Evil video game since the visuals and characters weren’t Oscar material either.
The gore on the other hand is pretty good looking as well as the practical effects. Credit to cinematographer David Johnson for helping with getting good looking shots. The set design also helps in the look of the film. Lastly for music, the score was composed by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson. While there has been no clear official release of the score itself, the music to the film is a mix of electronic pulses and brooding synthesizers. The idea was to have edgy music and while it feels that way in some places, other times it matches the more tactical depiction used by the military unit. It’s worth a listen if possible because it is not the classic sounding orchestral score one would expect.
Director Paul W. S. Anderson seems to have had a knack for jump starting video game movie trends early on in his career by doing the same thing twice. While it’s not by any means high end in performances, this video game movie is fairly faithful to its source material even if the special effect qualities are subpar in certain places even for 2002. Music also provides an interesting listen.
Points Earned --> 6:10
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