Solid enough zombie movie based on a video game

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2015)

As the film opens we that the film is set in a near future where the Umbrella Corporation is the world's largest business and that some of its activities are distinctly shady. The action then starts in a lab where an unknown thief steals a case containing a biological weapon that we later learn is called the T-Virus. As he fleas he smashes one of the vials releasing the virus into the facility, known as The Hive. As the virus is spread through the air-conditioning The Hive's computer seals the facility and kills everybody inside. We then cut to the sight of a naked woman, Alice, wrapped in a shower curtain; she gets dressed and is surprised first by an unknown man then by a whole squad of commandos! Their leader addresses her as 'Soldier' but she has no idea who she is. The other man identifies himself as a newly transferred police officer. These two are then taken by an underground railway to The Hive where we learn they intend to shut down the computer, known as Red Queen. Red Queen's defences kill many of the commandos and before the others shut it down its avatar informs them that they will all die. It soon becomes apparent that the people in The Hive have come back to life as zombies! Perhaps Red Queen was right; certainly many of them won't make it; some of them will become zombies themselves and not all of the dangers are outside the group.
I have not played the computer games this film was inspired by so can't say how the story compares but it didn't feel like there was much unexplained within the film. The fact that Alice has no memory means that we are told everything we need to know as the leader of the commandos tells her. The film opens strongly with the scenes with Red Queen killing everybody in The Hive and after we have been introduced to Alice and her situation the action is pretty good. It is also varied; we have Red Queen's futuristic defences that literally slice and dice some commandos with a laser, hordes of zombies, zombie guard dogs and a mutant creature for our protagonists to battle against. While nobody is going to be winning any Oscars for this the cast do a decent enough job; Milla Jovovich is good as Alice; putting in some good action scenes and Michelle Rodriguez is fun as the hard-core commando Rain Ocampo and Colin Salmon adds some class as the commandos' leader although sadly he doesn't last too long. In many ways this film feels like 'Aliens' with the aliens replaced by zombies; we have an evil corporation, one of the group who is working against their interests and the fact that the protagonist and the toughest soldier are both women... I guess if one is going to borrow ideas from another film one could do a lot worse that take from 'Aliens'. The effects are fairly mixed; the zombies, both human and canine, are impressive but some of the CGI is far too obvious. The Red Queen is delightfully creepy due to the fact that it speaks with the voice of a young girl and prior to shutdown appears to be all-seeing. Overall this film is far from perfect but it is surprisingly fun in a fairly trashy way.