Resident Dreadful: Appalling video game film as vivacious as a rabbit punch

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2002)

Almost a year ago, I compared the two video-game movies "Tomb Raider" and "Final Fantasy" to Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, respectively, because "Raider" had annihilated "Fantasy" in the summer box office race.
Now the latest to step between the ropes is "Resident Evil," also based on a popular game series, and it's easily the Mike Tyson of this genre. You're probably thinking, why? Is it a heavy hitter that boasts a knockout punch? A movie that mows down everything in its path and leaves the audience awed and asking for more?
Not even close. Simply put, it's because it bites.
What's wrong with this film can be summed up in one word. Everything. "Resident Evil" is a painful, slow-moving exercise in sheer torment for every single one of its 100 minutes. Never before have I groaned in agony, buried my face in my hands and shook my head in disbelief so often in a single movie. "Evil" is so horrible, it should be used by police as a confession extractor. There is not one redeeming quality to be found whatsoever.
Is it frightening at all? Yes, it will be for those who go into this dreck expecting menial details like a decent story and acting.
Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson (not Paul Thomas Anderson of "Magnolia" fame), spun straw into gold with "Mortal Kombat," but doesn't make lightning strike twice as he again eschews a competent script in favor of flashy visuals. In this case, it's gunfire, zombies, short dresses, speech-drowning music, poorly developed characters, bad editing, plus more gunfire and more zombies. "Evil's" lethargically-paced wreck of a plot is composed of long sequences showing people skulking through quiet, deserted locations, looking alarmed at every little sound, before unleashing loads of ammunition. Then the process is repeated minutes later.
"Evil" opens with an explanation of how scientists and workers at an underground laboratory called "The Hive" are suddenly exposed to deadly chemicals that look like neon mattress springs. This biological disaster has transformed everyone into  surprise!  flesh-eating zombies. (What were you expecting, the Rockettes?) Responsible for this havoc is the Hive's supercomputer, dubbed the "Red Queen," who sounds like a high-pitched HAL and is represented visually as a small holographic girl. Don't ask.
Enter Alice (Milla Jovovich), an amnesiac since collapsing unconscious in her shower. After changing into a Sturgis chic outfit of a very short red dress and very tall black boots, she spends an eternity investigating a huge mansion before abruptly being captured by a team of soldiers and taken to the Hive, where she's joined by another hostage, Matt (Eric Mabius), plus old flame Spence (James Purefoy) and tough-chick cop Rain (Michelle Rodriguez). As if you couldn't guess already, they combine forces to investigate the Hive and fight off the unimposing zombies, whose extent of a makeup job looks nothing more than having their faces covered in flour with a blood capsule to chew on. (They can also survive as much as five gunshots, yet are instantly dispatched by the undersized fists and feet of the female leads.)
The pasty-faced automatons express more excitement than the actors who sleepwalk through their equally lifeless roles. Purefoy is the lone player who isn't a total laughingstock. Mabius is gifted with lines like "She's right...we're gonna die here," in between repeatedly shouting the F-word for no reason. As usual, Rodriguez simply overexerts herself: "After this...I'm gonna go get laid." Her face is again frozen in her trademark head-down, eyes-up sneer. (Does her head slope downward because her protruding lower lip adds extra weight to it?)
Entertainment Weekly recently stated that Jovovich "could be a knife collection away from becoming the next Angelina Jolie." It seems they forgot a few things: marketability, athleticism, and charisma. Little details like that. Jovovich doesn't yet have the star power to successfully carry a movie on her own. She sees only a mere thread of action in the whole film, including the much-publicized and dopey sequence in which she battles Dobermans who look like they've been doused in spaghetti sauce. She is stone-faced in a majority of her scenes, and lacks vitality in any physical activity such as firing a gun or fighting off the zombies. When she does emote, it's in a silly moment where she pleads with a wounded soldier who insists on being left behind.
Anderson tries to hide the lack of depth in the script by constantly putting characters in compromising positions in order to utilize the ever-predictable jump-scare tactic. They're always reaching a hand out conveniently close to something that, in turn, you know will suddenly grab them. Plot expositions suddenly pop out of the blue, courtesy of cumbersome flashback sequences as Alice gradually regains her memory. Considering its intense buildup, the monster known as "The Licker" has no impact on the film at all. And on a local note, what was up with the San Francisco backdrop if the film takes place in (fictitious) Raccoon City?
The worst part of "Evil" is courtesy of editor Alexander Berner. After a despondent scene where Alice and Spence hover pensively over the body of a main character's relative for several minutes in an empty office, the very next shot is a jump cut of them frantically running for their lives in a totally different location before pushing through a door and slamming it shut. I sat aghast as I wondered how the director could be so blind to allow such an ugly transition to get into the final print.
Capping off this unabashed embarrassment is a miserable ending so obvious in touting  God help us  a sequel, that it might as well have been announced in huge letters on the screen.
Listen up. There is an outstanding movie called "Tomb Raider." Buy it. It has a plot. It has a script. It has exhilarating characters. It has a brain. It was the best film of 2001. And it is more than light years ahead of this apathetic mess. To call "Resident Evil" a better film in any regard is sacrilegious. It's like saying the Cowsills are a better rock group than the Beatles. Keep your distance unless you are willing to sit and be tortured into submission for an hour and a half. I have spoken and you have been warned. 1/10