YMMV / Resident Evil (2002)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The Red Queen: Homicidal AI on the fritz or brutal but effective AI trying to contain the T-Virus outbreak at all costs? You decide.
  • For the Laser Hallway incident, Kaplan suggests they may have triggered extra defences when they came in. But note how the laser only turns on after he explains what they're going to do to her. Perhaps the Queen was listening in and killed off the commandos to stop the loss of power.
• Awesome Music: One thing that can't be denied is the fantastic music score by Marilyn Manson. He manages to compose tracks that blends apocalyptic horror with powerful heavy metal. The best example is the film’s main theme, which is considered an iconic track for the film. “Seizure Of Power” is another awesome example.
• Best Known for the Fanservice:
  • Alice's most Iconic Outfit is her sexy red dress, which she does her fighting in. It's often forgotten she spends the first two acts of the movie wearing a jacket over it.
  • Alice waking up completely nude in the shower is also quite remembered.
• Complete Monster: Percival Spencer "Spence" Parks is a member of Umbrella Corporation's security force and the one responsible for the outbreak. Overhearing his lover Alice and an activist planning to expose Umbrella's illegal activities by stealing the T-Virus, Spence decided to steal the virus himself and sell it on the Black Market so that he and Alice can spend the rest of their lives in luxury. To prevent the theft from being discovered, Spence purposely causes an outbreak inside the laboratory so that the A.I. system puts the whole place under lockdown and kills the whole staff. Having temporarily lost his memories as the side effect of a knockout gas, he's found by a squad of Umbrella soldiers sent to investigate the incident. Eventually, his memories return, and he holds the remaining survivors at gunpoint, while trying to convince Alice to join him. When she refuses, Spence locks them up and leaves them behind to die, showing that he cared more about the money than about his lover.
• Critic-Proof: Despite critics hating it, the first film grossed over $100 million worldwide.
• Critical Backlash: The film is hated by critics and fans of the games alike. Quite a few reviews on IMDB are from those who are surprised at the hate.
• First Installment Wins: The general consensus among many fans is that the first movie is the only one that manages to be decent and even enjoyable, due to a variety of reasons. To name a few: Alice isn't ridiculously overpowered, the movie doesn't go overboard with the action, there's virtually no relation with the games' canon, and yet it manages to do a pretty faithful job of capturing the spirit of the games. The first movie is also the only one to actually influence the source material, with the Red Queen and the infamous laser room eventually making their way to the games' canon. The rest of the franchise does have its share of unique elements, but none of them reaches the level of fan adoration the first film did and are promptly ignored by the canon universe.
• Fridge Brilliance: Rain becoming a zombie in spite of having the anti-virus administered to her makes perfect sense considering that she had been bitten at least three times, and one bite spot happened to be her neck. It seems that the infection had spread through Rain's body too far for the antidote to cure it in time.
• Fridge Horror: Even if Kaplan were to survive the train battle, what were the chances that he would not turn into a zombie after escaping the Hive, especially with Rain suffering exactly that fate during the Licker showdown? Notably, the original draft even had him reanimate and attack the paramedics after being rescued, which leads to the T-Virus spreading across the world in short time.
• It Was His Sled:
  • The T-Virus escapes into Raccoon City at the very end, with the Red Queen's containment being all for naught. This has become such a common point that it was being referenced in every opening since Apocalypse.
  • Rain becomes a zombie after having been administered a cure. This has been referenced in one way or another in every subsequent film of the series.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Rain is a major protagonist so she doesn't qualify for Ensemble Dark Horse status, but there's no denying she's a kickass female lead played by Michelle Rodriguez at her most badass. Many tout her as a highlight of the film. They ended up bringing Rain back in a later film.
• Memetic Mutation: The film’s main theme by Marilyn Manson. While being awesome in its own right, it has been adopted by several internet communities especially the Resident Evil fandom for being the unofficial anthem of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Narm:
  • The Red Queen commenting she has been "a very bad girl". It's as if the writers couldn't resist the temptation to exploit her child interface to make that kind of joke despite the in-universe improbability of her being programmed to do it.
  • Rain's Dull Surprise reaction when the zombie chomps at her hand. Her line about how he ripped out a chunk of her flesh is so nonchalant that sounds instead as if the zombie merely spat on her boot.
• Narm Charm: The infamous moment where Alice runs up a wall and kicks a doberman zombie in the head. At this point in the franchise, Alice doesn't have powers from the T-Virus leaving a big question of how and why she was able to do it too. That being said, it's sure as hell cool to watch.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • A given in a zombie film, but the Laser Hallway decapitates one person, slices another's fingers off and splits One into little pieces. You even hear the sounds of the fragments falling to the floor. Thankfully his remains aren't shown.
  • At one point, Rain is dangling her wounded hand over a hoarde of zombies and letting them drink the blood dripping down.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The opening has Red Queen go homicidal on its workers, and the outcome is not pretty. Three scientists are locked in a room and left to drown, most people in the lobby get killed with a poison gas and one unlucky woman in the elevator is decapitated while others are trying to pull her back in. And since they all had been exposed to the T-Virus, they reanimate and well, the rest is history.
  • One of the aforementioned scientists is found by the assault team suspended in the flooded room, seemingly lifeless. Just as the group leaves, the woman opens her eyes and presses her palm against the glass window while a Scare Chord plays.
  • The infamous laser hallway scene. The commander, known as "One", and three other commandos are stuck in a small room while the laser starts coming at them. The team leader and two other soldiers get down to avoid it - and one of them still manages to get his fingers sliced off to the point he dies from the shock. The one who didn't duck? She dies on the spot as the head falls off her body. Then the other commando gets bisected when the second laser wave comes in and suddenly rises up, showing that the Red Queen knows how to play on their reflexes, and when "One" himself is the only one left, the A.I. goes ballistic on him, sending an entire laser grid to cut through him and succeeds. Just as Kaplan unlocks the door and disables the security system, One's body falls apart in a pretty... nasty fashion.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Eric Mabius will be recognisable to Ugly Betty fans.
  • She might not be recognisable with blonde hair and an American accent, but Lisa is in fact Mia from Love Actually.
• Signature Scene: The Squad being sliced to pieces by the Laser Hallway is what most people remember first of all about this film. Capcom would acknowledge the scene's notoriety by featuring an identical trap in Resident Evil 4.
• Special Effects Failure: The Licker, particularly when it breaks out of its crate, is made of rather shoddy-looking early 2000s-CGI that didn't age particularly well.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A major reason for the hate towards the film was fans of the game disliking the cast being made up of original characters and only having a few Mythology Gags rather than being a direct adaptation, though this was partly Executive Meddling on the part of Capcom, who feared a more faithful story would turn people off buying the games.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The last fifteen minutes of the film are almost needlessly dark. Kaplan's Big Damn Heroes is All for Nothing, as he's killed by a Licker. Even though Rain is injected with the Anti-Virus, she becomes a zombie anyway. Although Matt and Alice make it to safety, the former is infected and taken away to become Nemesis - while Alice wakes up in a deserted Raccoon City where the virus has escaped.
• Too Cool to Live: James Shade, the Umbrella Commando leader, full stop. The writers made sure to him as badass as possible before they have him sliced and diced.
• Vindicated by History: At the time, the first film was divisive for not being a direct adaptation of the games and its reception only plummeted with the decreasing quality of the sequels, which some of the creators admitted were only made because of the money. Years later, fans can admit that the film was better than it was given credit for, featuring some sweet action scenes, a cast of likable characters and Alice being a cool protagonist who is not super-powered (and is far more interesting for spending half the film wondering if she's responsible for the whole incident), and it's looser connection to the games means it works fine as a stand-alone story that doesn't mess with the franchise's main canon. This sentiment only grew following the release of the 2022 Netflix series, which was heavily criticized for being In Name Only.
• The Woobie: Poor Kaplan has to watch four of his teammates, including his commanding officer, die partly thanks to him being too slow to deactivate the Red Queen's defences, and the guy shakily has to complete the mission on his own after being infected and then separated from the main group. He's then rewarded for his uncommon valor and Big Damn Heroes moment by being pointlessly killed off at the last minute.

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