"The Dead Walk!"

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2002)

~Spoiler~
Resident Evil, when you get down to it, is a well-crafted piece of horror. It's my favorite scary movie to come out of theaters in a long while, no teenie-bopper s**t here, just pure horror. The atmosphere and infectious score are second to none. I love the small glimpse we get of the mansion, with the blowing leaves and evil crows. It's also very claustrophobic at times and those are often the best horror films. Paul Anderson's direction is perfect and he succeeds in doing justice to the video game. The opening of the film is so tense (the elevator scene especially) I had to remind myself to breathe. There were some other scenes where I just wanted to jump in and start whippin' some zombie tale. The dog's were incredible and the train sequence was straight out of Resident Evil 2. The in-joke was also great ("Where'd all the bodies go?"). Upon viewing the trailer, the fight scenes looked very anime-esque. I didn't think it was going to work. However, the flipping kicks and snapping necks make Resident Evil quite original. It is easily comparable to a few other films though (but I'm not upset about this fact). First off is the hallway scene with the lasers. Someone watched Cube before designing that sequence. And then there's the bigger comparison: Aliens. Both films share basically the same plot, with a strong female lead, but who cares. The only things that don't sit right with me are the all-too-obvious CG Licker and the character of Kaplan; after all the crap he suffered through, that poor guy deserved to live. Those things don't take too much away from the film however. Resident Evil is an exceptional addition to the zombie genre and a great theater experience (I have not had an adrenaline rush like this since seeing Event Horizon, another Anderson classic). Can't wait for a sequel.
Note for genre buffs: The newspaper at the end of the film reading "The Dead Walk!" is an obvious reference to George A. Romero's classic Day of the Dead. Also, Jason Isaacs (Event Horizon) has a great cameo in the film.