EXCELLENT! GREAT!!! KICK BUTT!!! POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!

Rating: 9/10 (20 September 2004)

Resident Evil just flat out kicks butt!
The cast is a group of virtual unknowns... but they all are great actors and actresses, able to fall into their roles with believability....
The action is TOP NOTCH - with lots of fighting and zombie action and running around and everything...
SPOILERS MAY LIE BELOW - BE WARNED!!!
When RED QUEEN, the computer of the Hive, in which Umbrella Corporation creates chemical and medical formulations, realizes that there has been a breech in security and that some of an experimental virus has gotten out, she does what any computer (read: uncaring intelligence) would do - kill any and all beings in the Hive and shut it down, not allowing anything (or anyone) to escape...
Some of the deaths are just simple - using Halon or some other type of chemical, the oxygen is removed from rooms and people die.... or the room is flooded and people drown.... or the elevator drops hundreds of feet and crashes to the bottom of the shaft.... or it moves quickly, snapping the head off anybody stupid enough to poke it out the doors...
Well, there are some drawbacks to the Red Queen's actions.... Including KILLING all of the people that work and live in the Hive.... And, as the deadly T-Virus is on the loose, which is chemically created to re-animate dead tissue, all of those same workers come back to life - with only the most basic of brain functions going - those that will keep them alive - breathing and eating... what do they eat?!? Living creatures....
Through this movie, we get an expansion on the Resident Evil video game series, giving us more back story into the T-Virus and the creatures that inhabit Raccoon City (far above the Hive). We learn a lot about how the virus escaped into the population - although not a lot about how it goes SO big in Raccoon City.
We meet an elite force of security officers of Umbrella Corporation, whose job it is to shut it all down... many die along the way, getting killed by zombies and dogs and brain suckers and the Red Queen's unique security systems... This film is NOT for the feint of heart when it comes to gore - both realized and intimated.....
The end of the movie leaves enough unraveled threads to allow for a sequel (see RESIDENT EVIL:APOCALYPSE - released in 2004) for more.... And enough threads are resolved, giving you closure and allowing the movie to stand well enough on its own....
a 9 out of 10!