Watchable, competent, forgettable

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2005)

RESIDENT EVIL
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS / SDDS
A group of highly-trained commandos enter a research facility which has been sealed shut following the release of a deadly toxin, but their escape route is cut off by hordes of flesh-eating zombies created by the toxic gas...
Based on an ultra-successful computer game, this routine potboiler (directed by Paul W.S. Anderson) marks time between set-pieces, and barely makes an impression. Despite a top-line cast (including Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Colin Salmon and Martin Crewes) and excellent production values, Anderson's movie replicates the computer game's limitless excess, and reduces its characters to the status of zombie fodder, despite a handful of plot twists which set the dwindling survivors against one another as the zombie hordes descend from all sides. The action scenes are chaotic but unmemorable, and some of the gore appears to have been curtailed for censorship reasons. Watchable, competent, forgettable. Followed by RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (2004).
(English version)