Resident Evil (2002) - 47 mistakes

Other: Near the beginning of the movie, Milla Jovovich reads a note that has been left on the desk. She didn't write it, as they demonstrate in the film. However, when they do show the person who wrote the note composing it, the handwriting is different from that in the note from the earlier scene.

Factual error: When the special forces arrive in the Station of the hive, the computer identifies the soldier`s weapons. The name under the picture is right, but the picture always shows a MP5, even at the soldier carrying a G36 Assault rifle.

Continuity: When Matt gets scratched by the mutated Licker at the end of the film, the scratches on his arm appear before the creature's claws actually hit him.

Revealing: When the group is being attacked in dining hall B, they are trying to get the doors open. J.D. is firing at two zombies and turns away to open the doors himself because Kaplan keeps forgetting the code. If you look closely, one of the zombies reacts a second late from being shot down.

Factual error: In the laser corridor, when the grid of lasers is formed, some of the lasers rotate to form the grid, and are no longer emitted from anything, they are just hanging in the air.

Plot hole: Red Queen is extremely conveniently programmed for the plot of the movie. 1. Rather than seal off rooms in a place she has TOTAL control of, (that by the way is designed to be isolated in sections for this very reason), she lets the infection spread to everybody in the Hive. She could have easily contained it in a small section of the facility. This is standard procedure in ANY biowarfare lab, there is no way she wouldn't be programmed to do it. 2. Rather than let everyone know the virus is loose, she just starts killing everyone. She had counter-virus available, why not let everyone know that they are locked in with the virus, but help is coming? The infected personnel would be hit with it only minutes after infection. If it didn't work and they died, they are still locked in. 3. Instead of calling Umbrella and telling them the virus is loose, she clams up and just slaughters everyone. This guarantees that Umbrella will ignore anything she has to say, and breach the Hive with a response team and release the virus, the very thing she is programmed to prevent. 4. When Kaplan is disabling her, she keeps telling him that it's a bad idea, but doesn't bother to let him know that shutting her down will release hordes of flesh-eating killers. 5. She just assumes that Spence, no matter how he got in to the T-virus storage has clearance to stuff it all in a duffel bag and walk out with it. She could have locked him in and double-checked with Umbrella. 6. The entire reason for her existence is to prevent the virus from escaping, while almost every decision she makes greatly increases the chances it will get out of the Hive. This is way beyond bad programming - this is highly advanced AI doing the exact opposite of what she's designed for.

Continuity: When JD asks why the zombie still was standing after he fired five shots at it, Rain has hair hanging down on the left side of her face. When it cuts, hair hangs down on both sides.

Other: Watch Milla Jojovich's hair during the scene when they are held at gunpoint by Spence. Her hair moves from shot to shot. For the most obvious, watch right after Spence shoots the zombie.

Other: When the train arrives back under the mansion from the Hive, it enters the station from the wrong direction. Looking at the track from the platform, the train comes in from right to left, when it should be from left to right.

Continuity: When Alice awakens in what looks like a stainless steel bin, there is a long scratch on her right shoulder. Throughout the rest of the movie, the scratch is seen on her left shoulder.

Continuity: When Alice escapes the first zombie dog and locks herself in the room, a zombie approaches her and she kicks him down. When the zombie falls you can see his tie is partially outside of his suit. When it cuts to Alice reaching for his gun, the tie is tucked inside his suit.

Revealing: On the DVD commentary, the director says that he only had a handful of the experiment cubes in Dining Hall B and used cardboard cutouts for all the others. This is most obvious when Rain is walking through the hall alone to check on the first zombie: the cubes in the distance don't match the rigid rows of the ones in the foreground.

Continuity: When zombie Lisa lies dead on the floor her hair and the papers she lies on change position between the shots.

Visible crew/equipment: When the team leader asks Alice for her report, if you look in the reflection of the eye pieces on his mask, next to Alice's head, you can see a man wearing jeans. This happens twice.

Revealing: When the team leader is opening the door to the Red Queen chamber, he clips an electronic device to the door to hack the code. The device is actually a blood glucose monitor as used by diabetics - an Accu-Chek, I think.

Other: During the scene with the laser, the laser moves along the floor where the EMP device is located, several times. However, when Kaplan and Alice enter the room, the bag with the EMP unit is still intact.

Plot hole: Why does Umbrella know that Red Queen killed everyone, but not that the virus is loose? Is there no way to see into or receive data from the Hive other than Red Queen? Does every communication in or out have to be approved through her? And even if she is the sole conduit for information into and out of the Hive, her primary purpose for existing is to keep the T-virus from escaping. Umbrella THINKS that Red Queen has malfunctioned. BUT, she is working perfectly! So supressing info that the T-virus is loose in the Hive would contradict her core programming. So why doesn't Umbrella know?

Audio problem: When the code is entered for the door after the first zombie fight, the guy entering it says "got it". His lips aren't in sync with the words.

Continuity: When the first laser shoots through the room, the woman soldier is looking at it with the others; yet when the shot cuts to her just before she loses her head, she only just turns in time to see it before it reaches her.

Audio problem: In one of the scenes right before the solider get killed by the lasers and the alarm is sounding, the commander says to everyone "Hold your positions, everyone stay calm" but his lips aren't moving.

Visible crew/equipment: When JD shoots the zombie female in her leg you can see the square outline of the pack behind her leg that 'explodes' and makes the hole in her pants.

Continuity: When Alice and Matt run to meet up with Spencer, Kaplen, and Rain, Alice screams "Don't shoot!" and Spencer, Matt, and Alice try to close the door from the zombies. A zombie then grabs the inner part of Spencer's arm, then a shot moves showing the zombie holding onto Spencer's arm from the bottom, then back to the inner part.

Continuity: Near the end, when Alice, Rain and Matt are talking to the "Red Queen" in the virus lab, there is a wall-mounted LG Flatron TFT display where the Red Queen shows surveillance footage, etc. One can see an inventory type barcode label in the bottom centre of the screen. The camera cuts away briefly, and when the camera shows the display again, the barcode label is gone and the LG logo is in its place.

Continuity: Shortly after the Licker pulls Kaplan out of the train, Matt shuts the door so it can't get at the rest of them. The Licker goes on the roof to use the back entrance to get into the car. Matt hears this and rushes to bar the back door. Pay attention to the near dead Raine. She suddenly gets a lot more life and quickly moves out of the way to avoid being accidently trampled.

Continuity: When Alice enters the kennel where the zombie dogs belonged to she passes a blue trolley on her left side. When it cuts from inside the room where we watch her through the window walking, she passes the same trolley again.

Audio problem: When Spence is killed by the Licker, Matt sees this on the screen and asks, "What the f**k was that?" Where did he find the time to practice his ventriloquism? You can see that his jaw isn't moving...

Plot hole: Spence and Alice are charged with making sure no one without proper clearance gets into the Hive. Why then does Spence have the clearance to get into the Hive's most secret and secure area, the T-virus storage? Does a bank guard at the door have the combination to the vault? Can the guard in the entrance of a missile silo launch a missile? Of course not. There is no reason for him to have access that deep into the Hive. And while he may have bought the codes to get in, why does no one in the most secure facility in the world give him a second glance? Did he buy off every security guard and Red Queen as well?

Continuity: When they are entering the entrance to the Queen's chamber, the Medic is carrying a bag as you can see when the door closes. When it cuts from inside the entrance the bag has disappeared.

Continuity: When Rain is under the train using her flashlight to see if she can see something the hair hanging across her face changes position between the wideshot and the close-up shot.

Continuity: When Alice wakes up in the shower, in one shot, you can see the shower curtain is not hanging over the edge of the shower. But when it cuts, it is.

Continuity: The way the T-Virus capsule hits the ground is the same each time they show it, however when it's on the ground and motionless, the position is changes. During the flash back at the end that Spencer is having, the capsule is all over the place. However at the beginning, the capsule is just in a little straight pile on the floor.

Continuity: In the passage to the Queen's chamber when the laser is coming towards the woman standing, you can see she is looking towards it. A second later she turns her head towards it again.

Revealing: As the team gets off the subway and heads for the door into the Hive, the Red Queen's POV shows a nifty infrared display in the lower left corner that marks their locations - it obviously matches up to the ones on screen. But the dots are static, while the people are moving.

Revealing: When the survivors first get into the sewers, the camera goes forward on the dolly as they come around the corner. Until the camera gets its close up of Alice, everyone hugging the wall to get out of the camera's way. It's quite funny.

Revealing: In the scene where Milla Jovovich shoots the dogs with the 9mm Beretta she obtained from the dead security guard, a closeup of the gun is shown. Watch the cycling of the slide and you will notice that the ends of the bullets are crimped, indicating the use of blanks.

Deliberate "mistake": When the woman is attempting to escape from the elevator, it dislodges and falls down, so then the actress is facing the ground...but when her arm hits the floor, the floor itself bends. If you watch the DVD with the commentary on, the director points out that it was a break away floor in case the actress' head accidentally snapped forward, to avoid any injury.

Audio problem: When Matt is trying to reach the keys while kicking the zombie it cuts to Chad running against Spence who's standing by the locked door. When Chad is running you can see Rain in the background firing shots but you can't hear the shots.

Plot hole: Why didn't Umbrella's higher ups just ask Red Queen what happened before sending in an assault team? She could have told them the T-virus was released and the hive would have stayed sealed. Instead, they just assumed she was nuts and sent in people to shut her down! Had even one of them said, "What happened?", the zombies would have never been released - it's a plot hammer that contradicts the whole point of having an AI run the hive. There should have been a line that said something like "All attempts to communicate with Red Queen so far have failed. The whole point of an AI that has the capability to seal the Hive is to keep the virus from escaping! Her refusal to communcate guarantees that the hive will be breached by a team that is investigating.

Continuity: When the zombie dog jumps through the window Alice makes a run through the metal door and you can see the door is clean. When it cuts there is lots of blood on the door even before the zombie dog jumps on it.

Continuity: When the person is bumped into and spills coffee on himself, the coffee stains on his shirt changes between the shots.

Continuity: When Matt is at Lisa's desk he looks through some papers, he is looking at a paper which has black squares on it. Then he puts the paper down and looks at another paper. When it cuts to him noticing Lisa approaching he is now holding the paper with the black squares again.

Continuity: In the beginning when the the cylinders are being placed in the holders, in one close-up you can see the middle cylinder being placed and that there is no cylinder to the right of it. When it cuts a cylinder has suddenly appeared.

Continuity: When the man in the suit lifts the blue test tube at the start of the film, he lifts them vertically, but in the next shot, they're at 45 degrees.

Revealing: The Red Queen tries to goad Alice into killing Rain in the laboratory, with the Licker pounding against the glass outside. Just after they escape the room, the Licker breaks in. Watch its jump very carefully. you can see the exact invisible "line" where the Licker stops being a guy in a suit and becomes computer generated. It even changes colour.

Continuity: When Kaplan tells Alice not to listen to the Queen he is carrying the equipment by his right shoulder. When it cuts it has suddenly moved over to his left shoulder.

Other: Why does Rain get out her torch and hold it with her teeth before climbing under the train? It would have been easier to leave it in her pocket until after she climbed down. We also see, when she is working, that it has a device on the end for gripping it properly with your teeth (called a Lite Bite, I believe). Yet earlier she chooses to grip it by the barrel. Try it with a mini Maglite. It's not comfortable.

Continuity: In the beginning when Alice is wiping the mirror, you can see her mouth is open. When it cuts back to her it is closed.