Great Zombie movie

Rating: 7/10 (17 March 2002)

This is a fast paced, high-tech, high-action, horror film that keeps you entertained from beginning to end. There have been other attempts at bringing video games to the big screen that had miserable results. Of course, we all remember the ill-fated Mario Brothers movie. MORTAL KOMBAT was probably the biggest let down. TOMB RAIDER was not as bad, but still failed to really "wow" audiences. So far, I would say RESIDENT EVIL is the best video-game-gone-big-screen so far.
The plot outline is pretty simple: A team of commandos venture in to a secret corporate research base to discover what went wrong and why all the employees were killed off. They find out that horrible experiments were taking place and a biological terror is released in the form of vicious, flesh-eating zombies. They have to find the antidote and get out before they are sealed inside forever.
The film moves fast. There are a lot of scares, some of which are set up with fast editing, but the film pulls it off effectively. The gore abounds and is VERY well done. Some of the disfigurements of the zombies was done with CGI to great effect. There is one zombie that is missing a large portion of his head, which pretty much looks like swiss cheese, and that effect is both startling and grotesque. I loved! And if Zombies are not enough for you, there are also zombie dobermans. And if that doesn't give you nightmares, there is a big, Frankenstien/Alien-from-hell monster that breaks loose from its incubation chamber that probably will give you nightmares.
Besides the great effects, there are a lot of cool scenes throughout the movie. The highlight of which is probably the part where the commandos are sliced up with a laser beam. Also, the gore effects here are fantastic. (The end of the guy's knife getting sliced off and falling on the floor was a nice touch!) In fact, this movie is a lot gorier than I anticipated it would be. It is much more gore-infested than most movies that have been coming out in recent years. So that is a breath of fresh air to a horror fan like me.
In some ways, the movie amounts to a very well done "B" horror flick. If you are like me, you will love that kind of stuff. Although this is not a perfect movie, the second act is long and well developed. By this I refer to the characters getting further and further in to trouble. The situation gets worse, and then, just when you think the situation could not get any worse, it gets WORSE still! Which creates some good suspense and great action scenes which build up to a fantastic third act with an exciting final battle on the train. Without giving anything away, I will just say that the conclusion was really well done. I really liked the ending, not only because it was creepy and the final special effect was really grandiose, but because we get to see Milla Jovovich's muffin...who could ask for anything better? She certainly doesn't seem to have a problem getting naked, which is a good thing. Made me reminisce of the good old horror movies of the early 80's.
Only two minor complaints. The part where Milla starts breaking everybody's neck, I didn't really buy that. The human neck doesn't break so easily. Although, dying with Milla's thighs wrapped around my neck sounds like a pretty nice way to go. And sometimes the characters get in to deep trouble and then the movie doesn't really explain how they got out of that trouble. This doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the film, however.

If you liked ALIENS and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (my all time favorite horror/zombie movie) then you will like RESIDENT EVIL. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is another bummer of a video game/movie. It is an effective horror movie all on it's own.