One of the worst films I've seen so far in 2002

Rating: 4/10 (15 March 2002)

I remember reading somewhere that George A. Romero, the great horror picture director, was originally slated to write and possibly direct the transformation of the playstation video game of the same name to the screen. Then it was also reported that the studio decided to go with another director on the project which to me indicates 1 of 2 scenarios- 1, Romero had lost his edge as a zombie film artist and did maybe write a bad script, or 2 (which is what I believe), the studios couldn't recognize what was possibly an intelligent script in the tradition of his "Dead" trilogy (I can only speculate by the way) and decided to go with something that was a lot more dumbed down for their standards.
Whichever is the case, this is the result, a zombie movie where, truth be told, the zombies aren't quite the most ominous and terrorsome threat to the people in attendance in the film- a mega computer system in the form of a semi/mute HAL in a military complex is and that is one of many flaws and miscalculations here. Another is that the script has the dialogue span that a 10 year old would consider short winded (and this is a rated R movie) and development, yes even in action, that is not really good. In fact, the only thing keeping me from failing this is that the zombies when they do appear, look OK and the laser death sequence is a bit keen.
In short, this is the type of living dead movie where you can see what's on the other side of the spectrum of a movie like Day of the Dead (Romero's least effort) where there was more talk than action which didn't work that well and then this where even the action doesn't help to elevate poor writing (at least Day had a memorable ending). Hardcore Resident Evil fans should stick to the games and movies. Grade: Between D- and F+