This movie was watchable! Sorta.

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2003)

It just wasn't that good. It has slight similarities to the video game series but not enough to call it a truly faithful adaptation. Milla Jovovich gets a plus rating here, as well as Michelle Rodriguez, even though she plays the same role here as she did in "Fast and the Furious". You know, the tough, take-no-nonsense chick. Blah. I don't know, I think my beef with the flick is that it just could've been so much more in the right hands. I'm not a big Paul Anderson fan but I don't bash him either. He shows promise when he wants (i.e. Event Horizon, though the film itself is just as lackluster as Resident Evil) and I guess there was the possibility that he could've made this into a respectful fright fest. I think what happened is that his style got in the way, turning what should have been a gothic, creepy zombie flick into a metallic, overstylized piece of celluloid. I liked some of what he offered but it didn't outweigh what I had problems with. The laser beam sequence was actually pretty good. I feel that if this had been given to George Romero (as it should've been) to do, it would've been what it was supposed to. I don't know what happened there except for some problem with creative differences between him and the producers or something. Oh, well. I can't help but feel disappointed about the movie, having played through several of the Resident Evil videogames. It's watchable if you're looking for a no-brainer action flick with some cute chicks and interesting action sequences. What you see is what you get! RATING: ** out of *****.