Uninteresting

Rating: 3/10 (7 February 2005)

I'm no fan of the Resident Evil video games. I have played them but i found them to be quite tedious and slow. Not bad, but nothing that didn't feel like "Alone in the dark" hadn't already done it years ago on the Amiga.
The research complex called "The Hive" is buried deep under ground. Now a virus have gotten loose there that has caused the hive to close itself. A special military unit is going in to investigate.
I was of course skeptical when i saw who directed this movie. The Antichrist of b-action Paul W.S. Anderson. And here he does it again, the same thing he almost always does. Turns the movie into crap. And there are several reasons for this.
First of all Milla Jovovich is completely wrong in the hero part. Going to war in a mini skirt is ridiculous to begin with, and it just becomes even worse from there. The cinematography is surprisingly OK as are most of the special effects. But the action scenes completely lack any kind of tension or pulse. It's just people firing weapons while REALLY loud heavy metal music is playing, but there is no real excitement. This is typical of Paul W.S. Andersons movies though. The lack of any pulse in the action scenes. Seldom have so many fired bullets and so much fighting felt so incredibly slow.
So why watch this? Well it's not recommended. I don't know how it compares with the video games as i don't know the games well enough. But i do know that standing on it's own this is an inferior action movie. There are a few tolerable scenes and a couple of moments that lift this a bit above the lowest mark. But in the end you can do something better with your time. I rate this 3/10.