Too complicated for its own good

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2002)

Resident Evil could have been better if it would have just simplified things a bit by taking out half of the 'cool' plot devices and focused more on the zombies and a little thing I like to call character devel- opment. Just trying to remember all of the babble that was thrown at me during this film gives me a headache. Let's see, there's a blue virus, a green anti-virus, some zombies that turn you into a zombie when they bite you, an extremely HAL-like computer called the Red Queen who has a holographic representation of itself that looks like the daughter of the company president, two characters who have lost their memory and have many flashbacks, a laughably bad CGI monster who gets stronger with each kill, a mansion that serves as the emergency entrance to the Hive, lasers, circuit breakers, blah blah blah. We also get a bunch of juvenile boo scares right out of a Jason movie, multiple fake-outs, and an ending that hints at a sequel. Honestly, though, the zombies were cool, and everything seemed just like the Resident Evil games (we even get shots that look like intros to the 'next level' as it were) and the scene with the lasers was satisfingly gross. However, the cast pretty much stunk, and I didn't care about any of them when they were either eaten/crushed/shot. I guess if you like the games there might be some stuff here for you, but don't expect genius here. */****