One of the cornerstones of horror genre

Rating: Null/10 (16 June 2014)

Resident Evil franchise has quite frankly gotten out of hand. At the moment there are five movies made and a sixth in the making. Not all of them are that good, but most of them wouldn't exist if not for this film's good qualities and success.
Resident Evil benefits from an interesting setting, full of creeping zombies and other monstrosities, as well as from some really nice actors doing their best to breath life into this video game adaptation. Both Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez are perfect fit for their respective roles and really nail the tough action woman ideal. And yes, none of the characters in this film are all that deep or have good lines of dialogue, but such a flaw can be forgiven if the horror works well. And it does. The zombies are suitably scary, The Red Queen is unbelievably unnerving, the rest of the monsters, both supernatural and human, are a genuine threat and as a whole the film has a good claustrophobic feel to it. Would it have been better with more rounded characters and better dialogues? Of course, but it's not bad as it is.
Aside from the characters, the film's biggest weakness, to me at least, is the fact that sometimes the video game shines through a bit too much. They make a commendable effort to make the film its own creation, but there are certain scenes, which just scream "a boss fight" or "a platforming section". Minor things really, but they do take away from the experience.
As a whole Resident Evil is a lot of fun. It's actually scary because of its excellent premise and setting, because of its atmosphere and because it doesn't rely solely on jump scares. Definitely worth checking out for any fan of zombies and/or horror in general.