Based on the Japanese novel by Hideaki Sena, this live adaptation has really nothing to do with the videogame of the same name. I never had the chance to read the book so I can't tell you how well or bad the movie is compared to the novel. Parasite Eve is a very long and slowly built thriller, which failed to accomplish the simple task of being interesting, maybe because it tried to be too significant for what it was in reality.

The original idea was not too bad and could have turned out very well if it was not because of those interminable and boring dialogues. They should have tried to simply focus on the basic characters and try to give them a little more personality while developing the story at the same time. Instead we are only witnesses to a main character who tries to struggle against the death of a loved one, that takes up half the movie. The rest is an uninteresting development that doesn't even exploit the full potential of the original idea and the conclusion, which is probably the best part, is very short and doesn't give a lot of explanation. Also the long running time of the movie doesn't help to get the attention of the viewer since nothing exiting is really happening during the entire movie. If the pace would have been a little faster and the development carefully thought out, then the movie could have at least succeeded at being intriguing to follow.

The story takes a lot of time to develop the main character of the scientist Toshiaki, but was it a good thing? He was just your typical crazy and obsessed scientist that we have already seen a dozen times before. There was nothing in the character to say that he really added something to the story. The acting of the actor was excellent but the character itself was unfortunately just plain ordinary. The rest of the cast, which didn't have a lot of development compared to the character of Toshiaki, were played very well in general but we didn't feel anything for them. The characters were all mostly boring; this is very unfortunate for a Japanese movie. Maybe the only character to stick out of the whole gang is Kiyomi/EVE; the reason is probably because of the great beauty of the actress but also because there's a lot of mystery around this character. It is also the only unnatural, weird and strange character of the whole movie, which gives her something to dissociate herself from the main cast.

I don't even think that the movie tried to be scary, well if it was an attempt at being a psychological horror movie, then this movie is a total failure. We can maybe consider Parasite EVE as a dark fantasy movie but noting more. Even if some scenes were sometime creepy or at least tried to be, the movie never falls in the categories of horror genre nor didn't seem to try to exploit these tense moments as they could have been. The movie also had a very slow pace, don't expect to see weird things right at the beginning, to tell the truth there's nothing happening during the first hours. Its not essential that something fantastic or weird to happen every minute in a movie but at least I want decent entertaining and not witness boring dialogue and predictable reaction from the characters for an entire hour. When there was something happening on screen it was at least well done and interesting to watch, but these moment were very rare. As for the special effects, which were mostly made by CGI, they were not really very impressive but they were well made and didn't look cheesy at all. Which is a good point for the movie since except these special moments the movie doesn't have anything to offer.

Even if the production team took special care with the look of this movie, which is far from being cheesy, the movie doesn't deliver what it could have. Not even scary or interesting, Parasite EVE is far from what the video game left in the memories of those who played the game. So don't expect the movie to have anything in relation to the videogames or you will be very disappointed. But when I think about it, I'm not even sure who can fully enjoy this movie, those who have read the book will probably find the movie very bad compared to it. As for those who played the game will be very disappointed and those who never read the novel or played the game will probably just find it plain boring. In my opinion maybe you should rent the movie before buying it, cause this is probably only a personal taste of mine but I qualify Parasite Eve a lost of time.