Resident Evil

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Marilyn Manson worked on the soundtrack, so it’s no surprise that Resident Evil is best enjoyed by headbangers, goth guys, and PlayStation junkies. Like the interactive game it’s based on, this horror hybrid pits a small band of SWAT-like commandos (including Milla Jovovich and Girlfight’s Michelle Rodriguez) against a ravenous hoard of zombies, resulting in a gorefest that only sociopaths could love. The tenacious heroes are trapped inside the Hive—an underground complex where an evil corporation conducts illegal research with a deadly virus—and the zombies (reanimated corpses of sacrificed employees) are fodder for endless rounds of gunfire. It’s utter nonsense (not unlike director Paul W.S. Anderson’s previous Event Horizon), so your best defense is to wallow in it or avoid this trash altogether. A few cool sequences are borrowed from better films (that slice-and-dice laser is cribbed from the 1998 Canadian shocker Cube), but if you’re in the mood for heavy-metal carnage, this movie’s for you. —Jeff Shannon

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Given that Resident Evil is a Paul Anderson movie based on a computer game which was itself highly derivative (especially of George A Romero and James Cameron films), it’s probably unfair to complain that it hasn’t got an original idea or moment in its entire running time. In the early 1980s, Italian schlock films such as Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Creeping Flesh tried to cram in as many moments restaged from American originals as possible, strung together by silly characters wandering between monster attacks. This is a much-improved, edited, photographed and directed version of the same gambit.

As amnesiac Milla Jovovich remembers amazing kung fu skills and anti-globalist Eric Mabius mutters about evil corporations, a gang of clichéd soldiers with nary a distinguishing feature between them (except for Michelle Rodriguez as a secondary tough chick) are trapped in an underground scientific compound at the mercy of a tyrannical computer—which manifests as a smug little-girl-o-gram—fending off flesh-eating zombies (though gore fans will be disappointed by the film’s need to stay within the limits of the 15 certificate) and CGI mutants, not to mention the ever-popular zombie dogs. It’s tolerably action-packed, but zips past its borrowings (Aliens, Cube, Deep Blue Sea) without adding anything that future schlock pictures will want to imitate. —Kim Newman

Barnes and Noble

Big scares, bigger action, and state-of-the-art visual effects help bring Resident Evil from the game console to the big screen in this frenetic and somewhat faithful adaptation. The story is set in a high-tech security compound, where dubious research has produced a virus that causes its dead hosts to walk and eat flesh. With the area under lockdown, a select group of soldiers and employees (including Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, and Eric Mabius) must eliminate the problem—that is, before the problem eats them. As an amnesiac operative unsure of her motivations, Jovovich revisits the Fifth Element persona with predictably sexy results. Rodriguez, as a scrappy soldier, brings new force to her trademark scowl. Their most memorable costars, which include a legion of ravenous undead and the mutant Licker, are the result of great special effects, both of the makeup and digital varieties. In his second video game adaptation, Mortal Kombat director Paul Anderson bares his scaremonger chops, balancing the gory action with tense, white-knuckle setups and old-fashioned seat-jumping fright. The DVD features audio commentary with the cast and filmmakers, various making-of featurettes, and more. Tony Nigro