A fun popcorn movie...

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2002)

There's a difference between a movie and a popcorn movie. A regular movie features decent acting and plot, and usually has some depth behind it. A popcorn movie is just there for the sake of entertainment. There can be good popcorn movies (The Mummy) and there can be bad popcorn movies (Tomb Raider). But, Resident Evil is somewhere in between.
Deep underground is secret laboratory called The Hive. The Hive is owned by the Umbrella Corporation, which controls almost 90% of things that the public has in their house. Someone smashes and releases a deadly virus into the air, which gets transported by the air conditioning. In order to stop the virus from getting out, the computer (named The Red Queen) must close off all exits and kill everyone in The Hive, because once you breathe in the virus, or get scratched or bitten by someone who carries it, you are infected. A special military unit is unaware of the virus and assumes that the computer malfunctioned and went homicidal. So they get their team together and head down into The Hive. The team consists of Rain (Michelle Rodriquez), Kaplan (Martin Crewes) and a few other people that have no relevance to the story other than to meet a gruesome demise. This military team takes down Alice (Milla Jovovich), Matt (Eric Mabius), and Spencer Parks (James Purefoy) who will also help to destroy the Red Queen.
When they're in The Hive, they find that all of those who died turned into flesh-craving zombies and that the Red Queen was just doing what she had to do. Now the team has to fight their way out. Oh yeah, and they only have one hour to do that in because the door leading out of The Hive will close permanently trapping everyone down there. Plus, there's a giant zombie that looks like a blob running around. Also, there's some Dobermans that look like they were skinned alive.
Resident Evil has a very strong first half hour. There's a somewhat brilliant scene where half of the team are trapped in a room with lasers that slice and dice them to bits if they do not get out of the way. The middle of the movie is a jolt-a-minute ride that works only half of the time. Then the ending is downright stupid. The zombies, also, are frightening the first few times they appear, but then the fight scenes that follow all have the same routine.
Now, don't get me wrong, Resident Evil is a bad movie, but it's one of those movies that so bad it's good. As a regular movie, it's not worth anyone's time. But as a popcorn movie, it works very well. So, order the large popcorn with extra butter, sit down in the cushy theater seats and check your brain at the door.---------6/10