What can you say?

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2005)

Fact: When I saw the first trailer for this movie I was so excited I nearly wet my pants. I remember hearing rumors about a Resident Evil movie (directed by George Romero) back in 1998, when Resident Evil 2 came out, and promptly heard nothing else (interesting aside: In that same issue of GamePro magazine they mention something about Bob Dylan's son directing a House of the Dead movie... see how these things turn out).
Anyway, I insisted on going to see it even after it got universal "meh" reviews. Well... I was disappointed. It wasn't "Bad" per se, it just wasn't good. The storyline didn't follow the video game, which I guess would have been a little redundant, given that the game played a little like a movie. It's just that the slick feel and high-tech science stuff seemed a little contrary to what I really enjoyed about the video games (tight, oddly-lit rooms, and everything being a mess). Likewise, the movie did not focus on game characters, instead it had Milla Jovovich as some woman with amnesia. Again, meh. There were relatively few zombie scenes in the movie, and the best moments of those scenes were stolen from George Romero (example: guy looks like he's going to commit suicide, then shoots a zombie instead). It was unspectacular, and the ending (which really got my hopes up for a final, super-cool battle sequence) was a serious letdown - I remember one time waiting through an entire porno movie for these two characters to get it on, and it never happened; it was about the same experience (except the porno movie didn't have a sequel where the two characters get it on incessantly, in lots of goofy positions).
So that was the first time I saw Resident Evil. After watching it again, however, with some friends who didn't play the games, and as such weren't familiar with their settings or deliberate pace, I appreciated the awesome silliness of this movie: One of my friends pointed out what a daring move it is to kill off half the cast in one scene; we noticed that the zombie dogs looked like normal dogs covered in corned beef. And the Red Queen... good lord. Maybe a computer with the voice of a little British girl saying "You're all going to die down here" could have been scary, but here it's just a precursor to the hilarious techno-camp of Resident Evil Apocalypse.
I can't really say anything bad about this movie. It disappointed me at first, yes. But hey, we've got the REmake on GameCube to make all our dreams about cinema-quality RE1 come true. If I want to see a real zombie movie, I always have out Dawn of the Dead, but now if I want to see Milla Jovovich kick a mutant dog Matrix-style, I have somewhere to go. Thank you, Paul W.S. Anderson.