Noisy and VERY tedious

Rating: 2/10 (19 April 2002)

Rubbish action. Rubbish horror. I was going to limit my review of RESIDENT EVIL to these two pithy phrases. But when the comment `Well, what were you expecting anyway?' floated in my general direction, I began to bristle at this lazy, time-worn mantra.
So what was I expecting, indeed hoping, to get out of this? More. Much more. We simply must learn to be more demanding. I speak as a fan of the original video games, and as a lover of a good Zombie-fest. Yes, I love zombies  adore the pasty-faced, shambling hordes of Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, the eerie moth-eaten Templar Knights from the BLIND DEAD series, even Fulci's faintly charming, crumbling undead. And here's the thing  the zombies in RESIDENT EVIL are just about the most uninspiringly sanitised bunch you could ever (not) hope to bump into. They are a distillation of all the film's failings.
Early impressions are favourable, with slick visuals and meaty, evocative sound design. But glossy aesthetics have the capacity to irritate rapidly in the absence of any semblance of plot. Make no mistake, the screenplay is RESIDENT EVIL'S principal Achilles' heel. The lousy dialogue (the one element to have survived intact in the transition from game to film) is further undermined by a limp narrative consisting entirely of one poorly conceived and executed set-piece after another. Characters spend the vast majority of the time running from point A to point B, without thought or ingenuity, to the extent that the viewer is soon faced with a tiresomely uninteresting series of disconnected and repetitive episodes. Things aren't helped along by some very strange continuity decisions, with characters regularly in calm conversation one moment and the next hysterically slamming doors shut in the face of a mutant horde.
As though to paper over the glaring cracks, a bombastic electronic / heavy guitar score kicks in every few seconds, often at the most inopportune moments. Suspense and fear arise as much from moments of silence as from noise, but the first, most obvious lesson of horror filmmaking is so obviously and sadly lost on Paul Anderson and co. The undisciplined noise put me very much in mind of TOMB RAIDER, which similarly failed to capture the spirit of the original video games despite superficial similarities in the set design. These video games are primarily solitary experiences, I would venture almost introspective, whereas the celluloid incarnations are anything but, raucous and over-populated. I can just imagine a major studio risking a high-profile franchise with an introspective film light on dialogue and supporting characters, but rich in atmosphere.... not.

I've seen the word `splatter' bandied about with reckless ease on these pages. Please don't make me laugh. The gallery of monsters on offer, including the aforementioned zombies, singularly fail to impress, victims of an overly clean, fussy cinematography that imparts a sanitised sheen on everything. The blood-letting is unimpressive and deceptively clinical. Rather like persisting with a dull film in the hope of catching the odd crumb of gratuitous nudity, here I was soon hankering after some proper, sleazy gore to alleviate the tedium. At this point, you know in your heart of hearts that both you and the film are in dire trouble, nay sinking fast.

RESIDENT EVIL fails as horror and as action. It's a one-trick pony that is relentlessly noisy and tedious.