Cast: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, Colin Salmon
A secret bio-chemical laboratory called The Hive has a deadly virus leakage. A special commando is sent in to stop the virus from spreading and zombifying the world. Fasten your seatbelts, grab your joystick, bring on the popcorn. Add big guns, big explosions, zombies, mutants, skinned dogs, laser traps, elevators going nutzoid, gratuitous muff-shots, foul language, decapitations, martial art etc and you have a comfortable mixture with something for everybody (but mostly plenty for the kids).
As everyone know by now, the undisputed king of zombie flicks, George Romero, was originally set to direct this film, so comparisons to his work are unavoidable, especially since British director Paul Anderson (Event Horizon, Soldier etc) so openly have credited Romero as a main source for inspiration. He even stole some of the master's stuff straight from Dawn of the Dead. Whole chunks of stuff actually, like the wounded soldier slowly turning into a zombie in front of his/her comrades. Or the whole deal with zombies and elevators. There's also borrowings from 2001, Cube, The Beyond etc. It doesn't matter, though, they stole it well and proudly. Other things they did not so well. Good ensemble acting was always one of the best things about Romero's zombie films. Not so here. This collected bunch of insignificant nobodys doesn't do much to help the microscopic plot and, apart from Milla Jovovich and her red dress (no, I won't say anything about it), it's difficult to tell the actors apart. The best of them, Colin Salmon (from the recent James Bond movies), at first seem to continue the Romero tradition of having a strong black leading man, but unfortunately he buys it badly (oh so badly) early on.
Ultimately though, Resident Evil should not be judged by what it could have been, but by what it ended up as. And the first half hour of the film is not the best third I've seen, to be honest. There isn't any real build-up as we are thrown directly into the fire without any moment to breath or think (as if we needed). And then there's the expected credibility problems (no, I still won't say anything about Milla and that dress) and dumb-assed computer-game logic (small death-traps which are easy to escape from but which has no point since there's a always one big damn unescapable trap waiting at the end of the line), but it gets better as it moves along. Because when the full premise have been laid clear and the characters have been at least slightly established, Resident Evil starts to roll seriously. Young kid Anderson shows a refreshing consistence and assurance in his kick-ass style and seem completely aware of, on a technical level at least, what he want to do and how to do it on a budget. Moving on, there are some very exciting set-pieces and effectively paced zombie attacks going on in the middle part of the film, particularly one where our heroes are trapped on top of the air pipes down in the culverts, with zillions of hungry zombies (or at least 50) beneath trying to grab their asses. Great stuff. Great production design, great sound and soundtrack also by Marco Beltrami (Scream) and, of all people, Marilyn Manson. Finally there's a great apocalyptic ending too, which could easily be attached right to the beginning of Day of the Dead.
Conclusively, for a broader, more subtle movie they should probably have stuck with George Romero in charge, but in the end they did quite well with Paul Anderson too. Resident Evil is a superslick, braindead and ridiculous but enjoyable high-tech ass-kicking zombie flick. Phew... a whole damn review without even mentioning the original videogame.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.